Summary
- Lightsabers may be powerful, but they are ineffective against certain beings and objects, including a historically significant droid, Ajax Sigma, whose core processor was passed down and installed into a new, more powerful droid body.
- Droids are a Jedi or Sith's most unbeatable enemy because even if a lightsaber slices off all their limbs and stabs them multiple times, the droid's core processor can still be recovered and placed in a new body, making them extremely difficult to defeat.
- Jedi and Sith prefer using lightsabers over conventional blasters against droids, despite their ineffectiveness, due to tradition and the precision of the lightsaber as a weapon. However, this choice leaves them at a disadvantage against droids like Ajax Sigma and his followers.
The Jedi and Sith of the Star Wars universe wield one of the most powerful weapons in the galaxy - but even lightsabers can be useless against certain beings and objects. The iconic symbol of the Star Wars mythos, these "elegant weapons from a more civilized age" can stop almost every form of weapon the Empire can create. But in one Star Wars story, the franchise reveals lightsabers fail to work on one key race...and fail to stop a key villain from amassing an army.
Introduced in Episode IV: A New Hope in 1977, lightsabers were immediately iconic, with only Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader seen using them. The prequels only expanded what lightsabers could do, showing them deflect blaster bolts back at foes, cut through nearly any solid objects, and prove impossible to stop by anything but another lightsaber. But fans may not realize that one historically significant droid proved too powerful for even a lightsaber to stop.
In Star Wars: Revelations #1 the mysterious Eye of Webbish Bog reveals to Darth Vader a vision of a single droid: Ajax Sigma, a being who inspired a revolution among his people. Centuries ago, the Jedi of the High Republic cut down Ajax Sigma's rebellion and his followers in a pitched conflict... but his core processor was preserved, passed down from person to person, and eventually installed the core into a new, more powerful droid body.
Lightsabers Are Too Elegant To Properly Destroy Droids
So given all their power, why were the Jedi unable to kill a simple droid? Star Wars: Revelations #1 revealed this tale of droid survival thanks to Marc Guggenheim, Salvador Larroca, Paul Fry, Emma Kubert, and Justin Mason. But proving it wasn't a one-off bit of luck, a villainous droid's miraculous survival against a lightsaber-wielding foe has happened before.In Star Wars: Darth Vader #1, Darth Vader engages the droid ZED-6-7 in battle, but fails to permanently destroy it - and the same exact situation plays out in Star Wars: Darth Vader #13 against the famous IG-88.
A lightsaber can take an organic opponent out of the fight with a single stroke to a non-vital organ, but the same cannot be said for droids. The destruction of a droid's limb simply does not matter when it can be repaired in minutes (or after years, or centuries). Unless the core processor sustains a direct hit, the individual droid will continue to function, possessed of all its character traits and motivations. Making them harder to kill, as demonstrated in Revenge of the Sith against General Grievous' Magnaguards, who continued to fight even when headless and limbless. But when rising to a height of individual threat and menace, it means an immortality that will survive even a flawless, elegant Jedi weapon.
Droids Will Always Be A Jedi or Sith's Most Unbeatable Enemy
Simply put, a lightsaber is too precise a weapon to efficiently cut down droids for good. Even if a Jedi or a Sith slices off all their limbs and stabs them multiple times in the center mass, the droid's "brain" can still be recovered and placed in a new body; the same cannot be said for a human opponent. This is why Ajax Sigma is a genuine threat against lightsaber-wielders: a single stroke isn't enough to defeat him (or his many followers).
Since a droid's core processor can theoretically be located anywhere (the head, the body, or even miles away in another ship), Jedi and Sith must either waste their time cutting each robotic opponent to ribbons, or lose the lightsaber in exchange for a conventional blaster - devices that these Star Wars organizations, steeped in tradition, would rarely use on principle.