Ion rifle

Brutus: "How did they have our coordinates? How did they get past the cannons?"

Fern: "Why didn't you ask our droid before you shot it?"

Chaelt: "Ughhh."

―Fern argues with the pirates after they have disabled her droid SM-33 — 20?cb=20250116042720

An ion rifle was a type of blaster rifle that sent ion energies. A weapon capable of disabling droids, ion rifles were among the arsenal of Captain Brutus' crew during the New Republic Era. Around 9 ABY, the crew utilized ion rifles twice to disable the pirate droid SM-33, first on Borgo Prime and then on Lanupa.

Characteristics

A type of blaster rifle^[1] with three distinct barrels,^[2] ion rifles^[3] were typified by utilizing ion energies instead of plasma bolts, a characteristic that made them useful in disabling droids. Once fired, the ion energies would course over a droid, leading to its complete shutdown.^[2]

History

In the New Republic Era,^[2] the Skeleton Crew^[4] comprising the younglings Fern, KB, Wim, and Neel found themselves stranded in space aboard^[2] the legendary pirate vessel Onyx Cinder.^[5] Guided by the reactivated pirate droid SM-33, the children landed on Borgo Prime, where they had a run-in with a pirate crew. Overwhelmed by the pirates' manpower, the youngsters resorted to SM-33, who stood up for them by repelling the enemy's attacks. When the Skeleton Crew was about to board a space dinghy and make their way back to their starship, they were caught off guard by the pirates Gunter, Vane, Brutus, Pax, and Chaelt.^[2] A temporary^[6] leader of the pack, Brutus used an ion rifle to remotely disable SM-33, whom^[2] his^[3] underlings had failed to defeat. As he strode towards the younglings, the Shistavanen handed the rifle to Chaelt, who struggled to grab it. As the girl Fern argued with Brutus, Chaelt confusedly took^[2] her^[3] on gunpoint and kept aiming at her until^[2] her^[7] captain ordered placing the children in a brig pending further interrogation.^[2]

The children happened to share one brig with former Captain Silvo and escaped prison together. Intrigued by the younglings' claim of being from At Attin^[8]—the "lost planet of eternal treasure"^[2]—Silvo traveled to Lanupa to access Tak Rennod's datalog, which contained the coordinates to the isolated world. After parting ways with the Skeleton Crew,^[5] Silvo was arrested by his former pirate crew just as he made his way out of Captain Rennod's Lair through a ground-embedded access hatch. As a last resort, he called out to SM-33 to defend him from apprehension. However, the droid was disabled by an ion blast from a pirate wielding an ion rifle.^[9]

Behinds the scenes

A cut ion rifle as first pictured in an Entertainment Weekly article — A cut ion rifle as first pictured in an *Entertainment Weekly* article

The ion rifle made its canonical debut in the live-action television series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, first appearing in the pilot episode "Way, Way Out Past the Barrier,"^[2] which aired on December 2, 2024.^[10] A cut picture presenting the ion rifle seen in the episode had originally been released by Entertainment Weekly on September 18, 2024.^[11]