Tagge protoblade

The Tagge protoblade was a plasma blade, a type of melee weapon that functioned similarly to a lightsaber and was designed for lightsaber combat. When powered up, the protoblade could cut through walls, weapons, and enemies alike. The protoblade took the form of a gauntlet; when activated, it ejected an edged physical blade energized with plasma by a power source, giving the blade a yellow glow.

Despite its lethality, the protoblade was not as energy-efficient as the lightsabers it was modeled after. Whereas Jedi lightsabers were powered by a kyber crystal contained in the weapon's hilt, the Tagge protoblade required a connection to an external power supply via a cable worn by the weapon's wielder. The protoblade was built with cortosis, a metal resistant to energy weapons such as blasters and lightsabers. The cortosis shielding in the gauntlet helped protect the protoblade's wielder from the plasma but could also cause the plasma blade to lose power and revert to a typical sharp-edged melee weapon. Even when unpowered, the protoblade remained deadly.

The powerful and wealthy Tagge Corporation sought to create a weapon to replicate the lightsabers once used by Jedi Knights. TaggeCo created the weapon during the Galactic Civil War between the Galactic Empire and the Alliance to Restore the Republic. At least one attempt to produce such an energy weapon preceded the Tagge protoblade, conducted by the predecessor of Lady Domina Tagge, who headed the Tagge Corporation during the Galactic Civil War and considered her predecessor's attempt to replicate a lightsaber a failure.

A new Tagge protoblade was created at the initiative of Silas Tagge, Head of Weapons Development for TaggeCo and Domina's brother, in 3 ABY. Domina tested the protoblade against her Honor Guard aboard the Acquisitor, TaggeCo's flagship and mobile headquarters. During her test of the blade, Domina's secretary Lapin Tagge commented on the blade's performance. The protoblade consumed twenty-three percent more energy than TaggeCo had projected, displeasing Domina, who demanded that Silas improve the blade's next iteration so it would meet the company's standards, adding that the energy cells were overheating and causing the plasma to lose stability.

In spite of its drawbacks, Domina reviewed the blade to Lapin as far more elegant, sleek, and compact than its predecessor had been. Nevertheless, the protoblade under test was unstable and too expensive to mass-produce and deploy at scale, something that Domina insisted should cause a down-mark on Silas' next performance review. Domina further asserted that the Galactic Empire would never buy it.

Silas coveted Domina's leadership of TaggeCo and hired a crew of Ubese bounty hunters to assassinate the other members of the company's Executive Board so that he could seize control of the corporation. Silas did not hire the bounty hunters directly, rather hiring them through the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate; the crew thus did not recognize Silas as their employer. Led by the bounty hunter Boushh, the mercenaries attacked the Acquisitor during a board meeting, and Domina wielded the Tagge protoblade during the ensuing skirmish against Boushh's crew. After the Ubese attacked Silas, he pled for his life by admitting that he had hired them to kill his fellow board members. At that moment, Domina confronted Silas and a mercenary with the active protoblade.

Toward the end of Domina's fight against the Ubese mercenaries, the protoblade's cortosis core began to fail, causing the weapon to lose power and thus revert to a plasma-less melee weapon. Domina's Honor Guard eventually caught up and ended the skirmish, after which the Acquisitor was evacuated except for Domina, her Honor Guard, the mercenaries, and Silas. Domina then killed Silas with the unpowered protoblade for his treachery.

Later, between 3 ABY and 4 ABY, Domina had a new iteration of the Tagge protoblade created. When the smuggler Sana Starros and her crew became indebted to Domina's nephew Ronen Tagge, whom Crimson Dawn backed, the team was forced into helping Ronen overthrow his aunt. While Ronen coveted Domina's position as head of the corporation, Starros was wary of her influence and proposed that the crew kill Domina instead.

As Crimson Dawn's forces battled the Tagge Corporation fleet, Starros and her crew snuck aboard the Acquisitor, which was struck by a mutiny instigated by Crimson Dawn. Escorted by Boushh and his hunters, Domina wielded the Tagge protoblade as her crew fought their way through Crimson Dawn operatives and reached the Acquisitors bridge. En route, Domina remarked that her blade was still unstable, but it would be able to hold charge for another minute. Upon arrival at the bridge, she was met by Starros and her crew, and a skirmish ensued. The protoblade soon ran out of charge, and Ronen arrived on the bridge with Lapin in his custody. After hearing—and recording—Ronen's confession of organizing the mutiny, Lapin apprehended him with a paralytic, and Starros' crew switched sides—Starros herself claimed that the assassination attempt had been a setup to prove Ronen's treachery. Satisfied, Domina killed her nephew using the uncharged protoblade and pardoned Starros and her crew of their debt.

Sometime later, a group of pirates stole a prototype Tagge battle droid from a Tagge Corporation warehouse on the Inner Rim planet Milvayne. Afterward, the droid killed the pirates despite it not having a power source, as it had been corrupted by the Scourge infection of droids across the galaxy. In response, Domina had the droid brought to the Acquisitor where she was unable to determine what had caused the malfunction. She thus sent the rogue archaeologist Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra to investigate whether battle droids stored at their facility on the astronomical object Havel Prime had the same issue. As Aphra and the sniper Just Lucky carried out the task, Domina and Lapin left the Acquisitor and went to the Tagge Corporation research facility—the Casus Belli—taking the protoblade with her.

After Aphra and Lucky completed their task, they traveled to the Casus Belli, where Aphra was due to report her findings to Domina. Before she could, however, the Tagge Corporation leader came under attack by a pair of Scourged KX-series security droids. After she destroyed the droids, Tagge noted that they had replicated the same malfunction as the droid stolen from the Milvayne warehouse and realized that the affliction was spreading among the Casus Bellis droids. Meanwhile, Aphra, Lucky, and Lapin came under attack from a number of droids and headed to the vessel's control room but were unable to enter due to Lapin's access being denied by a Scourged astromech droid. As two MV-33 security droids approached them, Domina arrived and destroyed one of the droids with the Tagge protoblade. She then instructed the archaeologist to slice the door open while she cut off an arm of the other security droid. Once Aphra successfully opened the control room door, the group went inside, and Domina used the blade to destroy the astromech.

After the group reached a holotable, Lapin provided Domina with an update of the situation while she beheaded a droid with the protoblade. Understanding that the Casus Belli was beyond the group's saving, as the infection would continue to spread if the droids escaped, Domina decided to have the ship crash onto the nearby moon Asheris. As the Casus Belli moved towards the moon's surface, the four fled aboard an escape pod, with Domina watching as the research facility hit the surface and exploded along with all of the droids aboard. Domina and Lapin eventually returned to the Acquisitor.

While on her flagship, Domina herself became the Scourge's next target as it planned to take over her body and use her knowledge to learn how to master spreading its consciousness from cyborgs into fully organic bodies. In order to do so, the Scourge infected all of the droids aboard the Acquisitor, as well as the company's employees, with cybernetic augmentations and began attacking the employees who did not. Domina and Lapin also came under attack, and Domina used the protoblade to destroy some of the droids. After she had Lapin flee aboard an escape pod, Domina was approached by several Scourged droids, who stated that it was time for them to talk. In response, Domina activated the Tagge protoblade and informed the droids she was listening.

After the plasma in the blade drained, Domina was captured by the Scourge and brought before an employee of Tagge Corporation who had been taken over by the Scourge, who stated that since the weapon was working, they could talk about the Scourge's plans. Not long later, Domina was rescued by Aphra and Starros who had infiltrated the Acquisitor after learning of the Scourge's targeting of Domina. As the three headed toward the archaeologist's ship, the Ark Angel IV, Domina used the protoblade to destroy an MV-33 security droid. When they reached the Ark Angel, Domina and Starros left while Aphra secretly remained aboard the flagship to ensure the Scourged droids and cyborgs were destroyed, ultimately crashing it into the Outer Rim moon Rocedila.

The Tagge protoblade first appeared in War of the Bounty Hunters – Boushh 1, a one-shot comic in the Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters crossover event. The issue was written by Alyssa Wong, illustrated by David Baldeón, and published by Marvel Comics on September 15, 2021. Wong stated on Twitter that their working name for the weapon was "lightsaber corndog," because "it was a long metal stick wrapped in white-hot plasma." Wong also referred to the blade as the "Tagge Protosaber."

In the Star Wars Legends continuity, the Tagge family created another imitation lightsaber analogous to the Tagge protoblade which first appeared in the thirty-first issue of Marvel Comics' 1977 comic series Star Wars. The issue was written by Archie Goodwin, illustrated by Carmine Infantino and Bob Wiacek, and published on October 23, 1979. The Tagges' imitation lightsaber in Legends was owned and commissioned by Baron Orman Tagge in 0 ABY, who sought to lure the Rebel Luke Skywalker into a trap to use Skywalker as bait for Darth Vader, against whom Tagge had a vendetta.

The Tagge protoblade resembles the protosaber from Star Wars Legends, which was the archaic predecessor of the lightsaber. In the Legends continuity, protosabers first appeared in issue 0 of Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi — The Golden Age of the Sith miniseries, written by Kevin J. Anderson, illustrated by Chris Gossett, and published on July 31, 1996.