Sith'ari blaster rifle

"Even their kriffing blasters are better than ours!"

- Unnamed Triumvirate soldier.

The Sith'ari blaster rifle was a variant of the blaster rifle exclusive to soldiers of the Sith'ari Empire. Like most of their weaponry, it made use of the unique type of crystal discovered by the Sith'ari, which produced a much stronger and powerful blaster bolt. Incorporated early on into the Sith'ari army, it proved to be invaluable in their initial campaigns during the Sith-Triumvirate War, where it was easily able to overpower and deal quick damage to soldiers of the Galactic Federation Triumvirate. According to the likes of Darth Marduc, the rifle itself went through a great amount of revisions throughout its history, with the original being unable to handle a single shot before detonating. Later versions would fix this weakness, gradually expanding the amounts of blaster bolts that could be fired before the weapon became useless, before the final version was introduced which adapted it to the standard power pack model and allowed it to withstand an unlimited amount of shots, though it could still be cut through by the likes of a lightsaber in two to three swings. In order to increase the amount of power in each shot, Sith'ari troopers could activate a special feature in the rifle that allowed it to 'hold' shots longer than usual, compounding several blasts into one and releasing deadlier projectiles as a result.

The rifle slowly lost its initial superiority as the war went on, with the rapid spreading of stronger body armor throughout the Triumvirate army's ranks and more guerrilla-based tactics when it came to combating the average Sith'ari trooper being adopted as the norm. These collectively helped to undermine its advantages and made them rather useless in the end, with the two sides' weapons now technically standing as equals once again. Production was slightly limited by an attempted Jedi raid on the planet where their key crystals could be located, which, while unsuccessful, did slow down crystal harvesting by a decent bit.

Appearances

 * Apocrypha: Eclipse (debut)
 * Apocrypha: Gauntlet
 * Apocrypha: Counterattack
 * Apocrypha: Monolith
 * Apocrypha: Ritual