Obviously, they thought, the delay between the activation of the weapon and the destructive output (which usually coincides with the arrival of the bolt) means that the weapon's output did not travel at lightspeed. Some initially considered the description silly and dismissed it. Curtis Saxton asserts that turbolasers consist of an invisible lightspeed beam that is the primary damaging component and that the visible, slower-than-light bolt traveled along the beam as waste glow. The release of Attack of the Clones: Incredible Cross-Sections spurred more research into the nature of turbolasers. In the end, everyone had to simply agree that the nature of the bolts was unknown. Various printed sources attempted to explain the nature of turbolasers and blasters, but the various descriptions conflicted with each other. Nor could it explain instances of the target receiving damage before the bolt impacted. There was no explanation for how the supposed magnetic containment field was maintained, nor could the supporters explain the purpose of the plasma given the energy requirements of the containment field itself. In technical circles, this idea was derided due to the obviously slower-than-light propagation of the visible bolt.Īttempts to explain the behavior typically included the idea of a plasma bolt somehow contained by a magnetic jacket. For years, the nature of turbolasers had been a mystery to technical debaters, as the behavior of the bolts does not coincide with any real-life phenomena.Ī naive interpretation of the name 'turbolaser' led many to believe they were simply pulses of photons.

Star wars turbolaser turret