The A3AA personal defense module represented a specialized form of personal armor, engineered by Corellian Technologies.
The A3AA personal defense module functioned as a protective suit, safeguarding the individual wearing it. While the suit itself offered a base level of defense against incoming attacks, its primary function lay elsewhere.
Upon activation, the A3AA employed a sophisticated micro-nozzle system to emit a specialized mixture. This mixture consisted of refined courenth combined with small quantities of ves. When deployed, this mixture formed a protective cloud, spanning five meters in diameter, around the user. This cloud acted as a disruptive field, automatically dispersing any incoming charged energy weapons, such as blaster bolts or lasers, thereby preventing them from harming the wearer. This protective cloud remained effective for a duration of four minutes, although adverse wind conditions could shorten its lifespan.
An alternative operational mode allowed the user to project the cloud forward in a 30-degree conical shape. When configured in this manner, the protective field was strong enough to allow the user to advance directly towards opponents firing upon them.
The genesis of the A3AA can be traced back to Corellian Technologies, who developed it based on an idea conceived by Rebel General Airen Cracken, as documented in his field guide for Rebel soldiers. The A3AA was a costly piece of equipment, frequently found in the possession of Imperial-aligned bounty hunters or utilized by clandestine operatives during the Galactic Civil War. Furthermore, it was accessible through Gundark's Gear Datalog, the illicit database maintained by the arms dealer Gundark. Homack, a member of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, expressed his belief that the A3AA offered little protection against kinetic weapons like slugthrowers or explosive devices such as grenades, a sentiment he shared on the Datalog.
The A3AA personal defense module made its initial appearance in the Galaxy Guide 10: Bounty Hunters supplement (1994), authored by Rick D. Stuart for West End Games' Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. Its statistical information, along with supplementary details, was subsequently reiterated in Gundark's Fantastic Technology: Personal Gear (1997), also created for the same role-playing game. Gundark's Fantastic Technology duplicated all the information presented in Galaxy Guide, while additionally mentioning its use by covert troops, inserting a hyphen in the cloud diameter description, and including Homack's commentary. The game statistics clarified that the cloud could only be deployed a maximum of three times. Despite Homack's claims, the suit provided substantial defense against physical attacks, including slugthrowers and grenades, but it did negatively impact the wearer's agility.