Stolen crystals bleed.
Somebody told me they wanted to use a new AI agent harness.
It reminded me of a line I used to see on Twitter all the time. A Jedi must craft his own lightsaber.
I never looked into why. So I did.
The crystal has no color until someone claims it
A kyber crystal is colorless. It stays colorless until a Jedi attunes to it. Then it turns blue or green, or in rare cases some other shade.
The crystals grow on a few sacred worlds. Ilum. Jedha. They stay hidden in the caves until somebody strong enough to hear them comes looking. Younglings get sent in to find one. Nobody hands it to you. Nobody can tell you which one is yours.
You find the crystal that resonates. You meditate until it aligns with your own presence in the Force. Then you build the weapon around it.
A borrowed crystal feels cold in the hand. Resistant. Unbalanced.
The Sith cannot do this
The Sith do not form this connection. They can't. So there is exactly one way for a Sith to get a crystal. They take it. Theft, or they kill the Jedi it already belongs to.
And the crystal knows.
A stolen crystal gets bled. The Sith pours rage and pain and fear through it until it gives in, and it turns red. That is where every red lightsaber in Star Wars comes from. A red blade is a crystal that was taken from somebody instead of found.
The color is a receipt.