I like the lightwhip, shut up. It worked. It was laid out all the way back then that it was only quasi-related tech. The filaments basically just act as plasma waveguides. It has more in common with Niven's variable sword than a lightsaber, but it's an effective weapon. The lightsaber rifle is just stupid. A lightsaber is, essentially, a plasma blade. Taking a plasma blade and sending it over distance... is basically just a blaster bolt. I can see this being a specialized armor-piercing prototype or experiment of some kind -- where a grenade-like slug uses a mini plasma blade to cut through armor before detonating... but that's not what we got. Almost there, guys. Back to the drawing board.