Starkiller — the code name of Galen Marek, Darth Vader’s secret apprentice in The Force Unleashed — carried a lightsaber that was deliberately built as a skeletal, stripped-down version of Vader’s own hilt, with a bare metal body, no separate grip, and an exposed crystal chamber that turned his broken identity into a weapon.
That design choice is the whole story of the character. Vader gave his apprentice red crystals and a saber that echoed his own, a visible claim of ownership over the boy who killed Jedi for him. When Starkiller turned to the light, his blade turned blue with it — and in the sequel his clone learned to fight with two of them at once.
This page tracks the weapon through the Force Unleashed games — what the hilt actually was, how the red-to-blue change worked, the clone’s dual sabers, and where the whole story sits in Legends now that canon has left it behind.
What’s on This Page
- A Saber Built From Vader’s Design — the skeletal, exposed-crystal hilt
- The Red Years: Killing Jedi as Vader’s Apprentice
- The Turn Blue: Choosing the Light
- Two Sabers: The Clone of the Sequel
- Crystals and the Red-Blue Question
- One Hilt’s Story on a Timeline
- Legends Status: What Canon Keeps
- Frequently Asked Questions
A Saber Built From Vader’s Design
Galen Marek’s first lightsaber was modeled on Vader’s own hilt but made deliberately more skeletal — a bare metal body with no separate grip and an exposed crystal chamber, the visible mark of a weapon built by an apprentice under his master’s eye.
The Force Unleashed, released in 2008, tells the story between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Vader has been hunting the Jedi who survived Order 66, and he needs a weapon to finish the job.
He found that weapon in a child. Galen Marek’s parents were Jedi who had left the Order; Vader killed the father and took the boy as his secret apprentice.
The hilt Vader’s team built for him reads as a confession of that relationship. Where Vader’s own saber is finished and armored, Starkiller’s is stripped down — bare corroded metal, the crystal visible in an open chamber, no comfortable grip to hide behind.
It is the weapon of a tool, and the design says so on purpose.
The Red Years: Killing Jedi as Vader’s Apprentice
As Vader’s apprentice, Starkiller killed Jedi with a red blade — the red crystals were supplied by Vader himself, and the color marked the weapon as Sith property long before the boy had any choice in the matter.
His targets were the Jedi who had slipped through Order 66. The blind Jedi Rahm Kota, the hermit Kazdan Paratus, even Shaak Ti on Felucia — all of them fell to the apprentice Vader had trained in secret.
By the time the story opens, roughly 3 BBY, Starkiller has been doing this for years. He is Vader’s executioner, kept ignorant of his own past and pointed at the Order’s survivors.
The red blade during this era is the mark of the leash. It is not his choice of color any more than his mission is his choice of work.
The Turn Blue: Choosing the Light
Across the first game, Starkiller turns from Vader’s tool into a self-directed fighter — his blade shifts from red to blue as he abandons the Sith path, and the game’s light-side ending has him die pulling the Emperor’s lightning away from the rebel leaders he chose to save.
The turning point is Vader’s second betrayal. Having used Starkiller to gather the leaders of the coming Rebellion — Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, Garm Bel Iblis — Vader betrays him again, and Starkiller finally sees what he is.
He rescues Rahm Kota, the blind Jedi he once crippled, and Kota becomes the light-side mentor the boy never had.
In the light-side ending, Starkiller storms the Death Star, defeats Vader, and throws himself in front of the Emperor’s lightning to save the rebel leaders. He dies.
The Marek family crest becomes the symbol of the Rebel Alliance — the weapon Vader built ends up arming the rebellion against him.
Two Sabers: The Clone of the Sequel
The Force Unleashed II shifts its hero — a clone of Galen Marek, designated Subject 1138, who escapes Vader’s Kamino facility carrying two lightsabers and fights with them in the dual-wield style known as Jar’Kai.
The sequel’s premise is Vader refusing to let his best weapon die. He rebuilds the apprentice as a clone, and the clone learns to fight with a saber in each hand.
The dual sabers are the sequel’s signature. They are given to the clone by Vader, marked by transparent hilts with black bars and red activation buttons on silver rings.
Early in the game the clone’s blades are red. When Rahm Kota gives him two Clone Wars-era blue crystals, they turn blue — the same redemption the original character found, repeated in his copy.
The sequel ends on a cliffhanger that was never resolved, so the clone’s full story was never told.
Crystals and the Red-Blue Question
The red-to-blue shift is a story about crystals — red in Legends came from synthetic Sith-made crystals supplied by Vader, and the turn to blue is the moment he replaces those with genuine Jedi crystals — but the game and the tie-in novel tell that switch two different ways.
| Version | Red blade | Blue blade |
|---|---|---|
| Force Unleashed game | His own saber, red crystals from Vader | Same saber, crystal swapped to blue |
| Force Unleashed novel | His own saber, lost when Vader betrays him | A replacement using Rahm Kota’s saber |
| Force Unleashed II clone | Two sabers, red at the start | Turned blue by Kota’s Clone Wars crystals |
The two versions of the first game do not agree. In the game, Starkiller keeps his own hilt and the crystal simply changes color. In the novelization, he loses the original saber entirely and picks up a blade tied to Kota.
Both are Legends now, so neither outranks the other — but the visual everyone remembers, the red-to-blue shift in his own skeletal saber, comes from the game.
One caution for collectors: there is no source for the idea that Starkiller’s two sabers click together into a double-bladed staff. That is fan invention. He fights with two separate blades, never one joined staff.
One Hilt’s Story on a Timeline
From a child trained in secret to a dead hero whose symbol became the Rebellion’s, Starkiller’s saber tells the arc of the weapon Vader built and lost.
The Apprentice’s Saber, Stage by Stage
The first game carries Starkiller from a red-bladed Sith tool to a blue-bladed rebel who dies saving the Rebellion’s founders — his family crest becoming the Rebel Alliance symbol. The sequel’s clone repeats the arc with two sabers at once.
Legends Status: What Canon Keeps
The Force Unleashed is Legends, not canon — after the 2014 reset the entire story sits outside the official timeline, and canon has kept only faint traces like the Sithstalker armor variation seen in the Andor series.
That matters when you read about Starkiller, because some sources blur the line. The games, the novel, and the character all belong to the Legends continuity.
Canon did not completely erase his echo. Fans spotted a variation of his armor, the Sithstalker suit, in the Andor series — a visual nod rather than the character himself.
There were also near-misses. A creator has said he considered bringing Starkiller into Rebels as an Inquisitor before abandoning the idea.
One persistent theory ties him to the Ahsoka series, where fans guessed the masked Inquisitor Marrok was secretly Starkiller. That one does not hold up — the evidence is thin, and the character never appears.
For the lightsaber buyer, the Legends status matters mainly as a label. The hilt is still a famous design, and the exposed crystal chamber has turned it into a replica the hobby keeps requesting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: Why is Starkiller’s lightsaber blue?
A: In the first Force Unleashed game, Starkiller’s blade starts red while he is Vader’s apprentice and turns blue when he chooses the light side. In the sequel, his clone’s two sabers turn blue after Rahm Kota gives him Clone Wars-era blue crystals. Red is his Sith color, blue is his redemption.
Q2: Why does Starkiller have two lightsabers?
A: Only the clone in The Force Unleashed II does. Vader rebuilt Starkiller as a clone and gave him two sabers to fight in the dual-wield Jar’Kai style. The original Starkiller of the first game carries a single saber for almost the whole story.
Q3: Was Starkiller’s lightsaber based on Darth Vader’s?
A: Yes. His first saber is a skeletal, stripped-down version of Vader’s own hilt — bare corroded metal with an exposed crystal chamber and no separate grip. The design marks him as Vader’s creation, a weapon built in his master’s image.
Q4: Does Starkiller have an exposed crystal chamber?
A: Yes, his original hilt does. The exposed crystal chamber is the defining feature of the design, which is why modern replicas of the saber make such a point of showing the crystal. The crystal in his Sith-era blade was supplied by Vader and was red.
Q5: Are Starkiller’s two sabers a double-bladed staff?
A: No. He fights with two separate single sabers, one in each hand. There is no source that says his sabers connect into a double-bladed staff — that idea is fan invention. The two sabers stay two sabers.
Q6: What happened to Starkiller’s lightsabers after his death?
A: Accounts split between the game and the tie-in novel. In the first game’s dark-side framing, the original saber stays with the clone known as the Dark Apprentice. In the sequel, the clone fights through with his two sabers to the final confrontation with Vader — and the exact fate of the blades afterward differs by telling. What is consistent is that the twin-saber image is the clone’s whole identity.
Q7: Is Starkiller canon in Star Wars?
A: No. The Force Unleashed was moved to the Legends label after the 2014 continuity reset. Canon has kept only faint echoes, like a Sithstalker armor variation in the Andor series. A fan theory that the Ahsoka character Marrok was Starkiller has no real support.
Q8: Does Starkiller die in The Force Unleashed?
A: In the light-side ending, which the story treats as the real one, yes — he dies pulling the Emperor’s lightning away from the rebel leaders. The Marek family crest then becomes the Rebel Alliance’s symbol. A dark-side alternate ending has him survive and become a Sith Lord instead.