'Star Wars: Darth Vader' Just Revealed A Disturbing Secret About Sith Lightsaber Crystals
Until 2016, it was canon that the Kyber crystals for Sith lightsabers were created artificially, with the dark side user putting the ingredients into an oven and applying his or her will onto them until they were formed and baked into the crystal. This changed with the novel Ahsoka by E. K. Johnston, where the term “bleeding” was first used with regard to lightsaber crystals.
What this means is that Kyber crystals are to some extent living beings that are attuned to the light side of the Force. Such a crystal is not just randomly chosen by a youngling, but he or she and the crystal are both guided by the Force, to find each other. For this, the crystal sands out a kind of “music” or “harmony” that can only be picked up by the youngling, who is intended to hear it and to find the crystal in order to use in his or her lightsaber.
This symbiotic bond of course doesn’t work for dark side users, who instead have to force their wills onto the Kybers, preferably to those they had taken from the sabers of beaten Jedi. This process of subduing the crystal involves a lot of dark side power, until the Kyber starts to “bleed” and to turn red.
The first time we actually saw this process was in issue 5 of the comic series Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith (2017), where the fallen Jedi is tasked by Sidious to build a new lightsaber, after he has lost his own in the battle with Obi-Wan. Vader kills a Jedi and takes his lightsaber to a dark side cave on Mustafar, trying to make its crystal “bleed.” At first, the crystal resists, giving Vader visions of what would be if he returned to the light side and tried to kill Sidious. But finally, Vader’s will is stronger and the crystal turns red.
Decades later, Vader’s grandson Kylo Ren tries to do the same thing, but his crystal cracks in the process, leading to the cross-guard lightsaber that Ren wields in the sequel trilogy.
The recently released issue 11 of the current iteration of the Darth Vader comics, the latest arc subtitled "Into the Fire Part IV – Exegol" - written by Greg Pek and penciled by Raffaele Ienco, now adds another piece of information to the process of basically torturing a Kyber crystal until it turns to the dark side:
In the story, Vader and the Sith assassin Ochi of Bestoon travel to Exegol using the Sith Wayfinder that Kylo Ren later uses in The Rise of Skywalker. Inside the Sith Citadel, they come across a cut-off hand floating in a tank (To whom might this belong?) and the fleet of Sith Star Destroyers that Sidious is secretly building. In order to test his strength, the Emperor has Vader fight and kill a number of Sith Guards and Sith cultists. When Vader and Ochi finally arrive at the center of the citadel they discover a giant mountain of red Kyber crystals, which Sidious intends to use for the Axial superlasers of the Sith Star Destroyers. Sith cultists constantly stab and scratch the crystal with a sort of vibro blade, in order to keep it in constant pain and to bring out its full power.
The crystal responds to this with a high-pitched screaming noise that blows everyone away apart from Vader and the Emperor and blinds Ochi. Even Vader is haunted by visions until he finally realizes that his own power is no match for that of Sidious.
The comic doesn’t give an explanation of where Sidious got the crystals from (he just says he “harvested” them), nor why they have to be tortured with physical blades, but maybe a crystal the size of a mountain is too big to just make it "bleed" with just willpower, even for someone like Sidious. There is also no indication of when this bleeding process will be complete, as the crystal has already turned red and this seems to be the end of the process, when a Kyber is corrupted for the use within a lightsaber. But of course, it is possible that the crystals still have to be tortured even after they have “turned” in order to keep their power.
What we do get to learn is that a Kyber crystal is apparently not only able to send out “music” and “harmonies,” but also to scream in pain and agony when tortured. But unlike the “singing,” it seems that the screams are also audible to non-Force users, as Ochi can hear it too and there is no indication that he is able to feel the Force.
Maybe a crystal also keeps screaming after it is corrupted and put inside a lightsaber hilt, but as the size of saber crystal is only a tiny little shard compared to Sidious’ mountain, the scream may be too faint to be heard even for a Force user.
It remains to be seen if the process of making a Kyber bleed and what this actually does to the crystal will be further explored in future book or comics…
Source(s): CBR