Basically, what do you think is the best fictional material for making swords and other blades? (With the caveat that "best" often comes down to context.) If you could have a blade made out of anything, what would you choose?

It can be come from fantasy, sci-fi or whatever. Though, the desirable properties has to be inherent to the material itself. (As opposed to the weapon being magically or technologically augmented.)

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Note that I said "fictional." This doesn't have to be realistic at all.

4105411 in mlp i use dragon scales since dragons eat diamonds and gems and use them to make their scales.

4105411 Souls are generally the best (and most immoral) material no matter what you're dealing with. Basically, you're preventing souls from moving on by trapping them and making them into a sword/whatever.

Not sure if that means it's an inherent property, I guess it depends on where you draw the line.

Lightsaber. No contest.

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Souls are generally the best (and most immoral) material no matter what you're dealing with. Basically, you're preventing souls from moving on by trapping them and making them into a sword/whatever.

Never heard of that one before. Where is it from, and what exact properties does it have?

Also, I have to ask: How do they do that?

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Just providing information you might want to take into account: hardness, flexibility and probably weight as well.

In some cases such considerations may not be very relevant, though.

I play quite a bit of Dwarf Fortress, and mithral in that game is incredibly hard and super-light, making thrusting daggers horrifyingly powerful and broadswords into narrow wiffle-bats. Adamantine, on the other hand, is indistructable once forged but so heavy it is useless for anything other than fortifications.

Which brings my thoughts to Marvel adamantium, which is supposedly indestructible in it's primary form.*

Now, if the blade is literally indestructible, hardness vs flexibility probably isn't much of an issue. Weight is, though - I've always kinda wondered exactly how heavy adamantium actually is. But even if it's heavier than steel, that's probably more of an advantage when you don't have to worry about durability, since you can just make the blade thinner and more slender, and have something that hits as hard as a regular sword except on a smaller area.

*The movie version also seems to have some kind of weird vibro-blade-esque molecular cutting thing going on, what with Wolverine cutting a porcelain washing sink clean in half by accidentally touching it with his claws.

4105517 Basically, the stronger the person was in life, the stronger the soul will be and by proxy the sword. Additionally, the sword usually can't be broken - or if it can, you need to break whatever's holding the soul on earth first. How you would get the soul would be either taking the soul from the person's still alive body through some form of black magic, or simply capture the soul of a ghost, already sticking around because of some regret or revenge he/she needs to carry out. If a sword made of a soul strikes someone the soul knows, it would recall memories of thier experiences with every hit - sometimes still happens if the sword is blocked but doesn't touch the person itself.

I'm trying to think of the story I read that had these originally, but I'm getting nothing. Bleach! and Soul Eater have variations on these, though not exactly what's described above.

The biggest downsides to using soul weapons is the bleeding of personalities through weaker wielder verses stronger weapon or prolonged exposure. Soul weapons can leave a personality imprint on their wielders, depending on the relative strengths and the weapon's intentions.

Hmmm, there is the mythical Red Steel of Atlantis (Orichalcum?) with properties similar to modern Titanium going by the descriptions of its lightness and strength, and able to take an incredibly sharp edge.
Of course a fun one would be Fansteel from the DUNE series. (That pyramidal tent-fortress in the final battle of DUNE, in both book and movie, was a portable building primarily made of it...)
It is Nanotech steel that folds at the microscopic level like a window blind, Use that for a blade and you have a sword with the properties of a switchblade knife...

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Basically, the stronger the person was in life, the stronger the soul will be and by proxy the sword. Additionally, the sword usually can't be broken - or if it can, you need to break whatever's holding the soul on earth first. How you would get the soul would be either taking the soul from the person's still alive body through some form of black magic, or simply capture the soul of a ghost, already sticking around because of some regret or revenge he/she needs to carry out. If a sword made of a soul strikes someone the soul knows, it would recall memories of thier experiences with every hit - sometimes still happens if the sword is blocked but doesn't touch the person itself.

That actually sounds pretty interesting. Let me know if you remember which story that's from.

Bleach! and Soul Eater have variations on these, though not exactly what's described above.

Bleach probably isn't applicable for this, anyway, since the zanpakutou are essentially symbiotic spirits that happen to look like swords, and their power mainly comes from the user. (Which I think counts as augmentation for the sake of this thread.)

I never kept up with Soul Eater, mainly due to the slow update pace. What was the deal with the weapon-people, anyway? Weren't they basically humans who happened to be able to turn into weapons for some reason? I recall they did have families and got married and stuff, Maka's dad being a scythe if I'm not mistaken.

...Man, I should read Soul Eater again.

Hmmm, there is the mythical red steel of Atlantis (Orichalcum?) with properties similar to modern Titanium and able to take an incredibly sharp edge.

There are many, many variations of orichalcum in fiction. Though, the original metal referenced by Plato was probably just a type of brass.

I'm going to have to go with plasma. If you get it hot enough, it is capable of burning its way through literally anything because there is a limit to the possible strength of molecular bonds but no limit to the temperature of the plasma. A quick check on Wikipedia says 7000 F should be enough to chemically decompose anything it touches, although you would need a significant mass of plasma for that to work at a useful scale and you would probably want to push the temperature a bit higher to make sure it works fast enough to be a practical weapon. Containment is a conceptually simple process of trapping it in magnetic fields (although the actual implementation is quite complex) so constructing the "blade" is really more a question of power requirements and fine tuning than anything else.

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I am always particularly entertained by the thought of the Sword of Khaless (from Star Trek: Deep Space 9). A sword made of a lock of hair covered in fresh volcanic magma, forged with rocks and cooled with snow. It sounds like an awesome anecdote, but it doesn't sound like a good weapon at all, let alone the sword that forged the Klingon Nation into the Klingon Empire.

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Which brings my thoughts to Marvel adamantium, which is supposedly indestructible in it's primary form.*

Now, if the blade is literally indestructible, hardness vs flexibility probably isn't much of an issue. Weight is, though - I've always kinda wondered exactly how heavy adamantium actually is. But even if it's heavier than steel, that's probably more of an advantage when you don't have to worry about durability, since you can just make the blade thinner and more slender, and have something that hits as hard as a regular sword except on a smaller area.

*The movie version also seems to have some kind of weird vibro-blade-esque molecular cutting thing going on, what with Wolverine cutting a porcelain washing sink clean in half by accidentally touching it with his claws.

One of the early Marvel comic novels from about 1978 gave a quick rundown on the properties of Adamantium. It is a form of metallic resin where the components were mixed while heated by laser or a plasma furnace. once the temp dropped below a certain number, the resin cools and hardens instantly. they apparently kept this fluff going up through the X-Men & Wolverine movies. Supposedly, an adamantium shell as thin as a razor blade cannot be breached even by a tactical nuke.
Wolverine is constantly whetting his blades against each other to keep them sharp, this may be honing them to monomolecular sharpness. (Though that can hardly explain how they got that sharp before he popped them out the first time in "Wolverine"...)

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As much as I love lightsabers and similar weapons, I can think of some downsides.

-They are almost certainly kinda dangerous to use compared to blades made out of physical matter.

-The incredibly low mass would require you to exert extra force to cut through dense materials. (An interesting theory I read once suggested that the kinda twirly, grandiose fighting style the Jedi had going was simply meant to generate the momentum needed to actually cut through stuff.)

-The blade would cause a glare, and swinging it in front of your face a lot might be distracting at best and partially blind you at worst. (Try waving any light source quickly in front of your face a few times and you'll see what I mean.)

-Even assuming you've solved the problem of actually generating the insane amount of energy required, it would have to be a pretty complex device, meaning it would probably be prone to malfunctions. And unlike a normal sword, even a small problem could render the weapon inoperable or even dangerous to use.

-It would probably produce a lot of ozone, which kinda unhealthy.

Don't get me wrong, energy swords are totally awesome. I'm just not sure it would be my first choice.

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According to wikipedia, the current story is that the components of the alloy is kept in resin blocks that are melted together, causing the resin to evaporate. After that you have eight minutes to cast it into whatever you want to make, because once it cools it stays in that shape forever.

Supposedly it was accidentally invented by the guy who made Captain America's shield and then somehow forgot the formula. That implies it's an alloy of steel, vibranium and at least one more component. (Cap's shield being a steel-vibranium alloy that requires a third unknown catalyst.)

My only issue with adamantium is that it's a bit boring, since it just gives you a very sharp and indestructible blade. I'm pretty sure there are other materials in fiction with more esoteric qualities.

Wolverine is constantly whetting his blades against each other to keep them sharp, this may be honing them to monomolecular sharpness. (Though that can hardly explain how they got that sharp before he popped them out the first time in "Wolverine"...)

Considering that the claws are indestructible, I like to think he only does that because he thinks it looks cool.

Since his skeleton just got a thin coating of the stuff, I could see how his claws might be sharp from the start. Though, I do sorta wonder how they came out as perfectly shaped knife blades even though his bone claws look nothing like that.

4106449 Let me address your concerns.

-They are almost certainly kinda dangerous to use compared to blades made out of physical matter.

That is a definite problem. The blackbody radiation alone is going to dump lots of heat into nearby objects so you would definitely need some form of protection to use it effectively. Fortunately, if you have the technology to make a plasma blade, you also have the technology to make practical powered armor to protect the user because the biggest single limiting factor on both is the power supply and that is a much smaller problem for the armor so it will come first (and will probably power the plasma blade from its own power source).

-The incredibly low mass would require you to exert extra force to cut through dense materials. (An interesting theory I read once suggested that the kinda twirly, grandiose fighting style the Jedi had going was simply meant to generate the momentum needed to actually cut through stuff.)

This is just flat out wrong. A plasma blade cuts through heat so momentum is completely irrelevant. If it hits something it cannot cut through quickly, the plasma will basically splash off it after burning a partial gash. That said, blade mass is still important because that serves as a reservoir for the thermal energy you use to cut so you would need a significant amount of blade mass to cut effectively.

-The blade would cause a glare, and swinging it in front of your face a lot might be distracting at best and partially blind you at worst. (Try waving any light source quickly in front of your face a few times and you'll see what I mean.)

That would not be a serious problem. While it will definitely glow, the user will need full body protection anyways so it is easy to incorporate a darkened or darkening visor to deal with this issue.

-Even assuming you've solved the problem of actually generating the insane amount of energy required, it would have to be a pretty complex device, meaning it would probably be prone to malfunctions. And unlike a normal sword, even a small problem could render the weapon inoperable or even dangerous to use.

Not really. It is all solid state electromagnetic components which are well known to be extraordinarily reliable so malfunction would not be a serious issue.

-It would probably produce a lot of ozone, which kinda unhealthy.

That is a possible concern (although the operating temperature would be high enough to decompose ozone which might help), but the mandatory protective suit will have to cover the face anyways so it is easy to incorporate a filter for that there.

Don't get me wrong, energy swords are totally awesome. I'm just not sure it would be my first choice.

Well, you did ask for the best blade material and nothing can stop high temperature plasma from cutting through it so I think that qualifies. Also, as mentioned before, the blade would basically have to come built into a suit of powered armor to protect the user and provide power for the blade which gives it a huge advantage over the pointy bits of metal which are going to tend to stop when they hit something really tough.

Jungle spores, stingers, hellstone bars, crimtane/demonite bars, a katana of unknown origin, hallow bars, and three broken hero swords are what you need to craft the Terra Blade, a sword that fires piercing projections of itself, can be swung really fast, and does tons of damage. So far, there's no known way to break it.

4105411 I initially came up with this idea for an abandoned FIM fic I wrote a long time ago. I had the idea of a sword that is made of 'Storm metal', a rare and valuable material that exists only in the sky. How is it created? Storm clouds irradiate with lightning bolts and sometimes these bolts end up crashing against it other over and over again. Eventually it solidifies, turning into a raw metal-like material. The pegasi who find them often forge legendary weapons with them. It's light, sharp and it never dulls. Not to mention, the blade has a bluish finish, kinda like a lightning bolt. Legend has it, the wielders can draw the lightning from the sky and slice through pretty much anything.

Unfortunately the story went up in flames like the Hindenburg so yeah.

Gundanium:it's lighter AND stronger that regular titanium