How Hyperdrive Broke Star Wars

[@TemplinInstitute]

Hyperspace ram our twitter to save the Resistance. | twitter.com/TemplinEdu

[@dimpohn-jz6cb]

Welp oof 😅

[@jamesgaddis6189]

For the Empire!

[@jebkerman5422]

I think a big difference between the core and the rim are the amount of resources: A galactic core is much denser than the edge, leading to the formation of bigger stars, which go supernova, seeding the nebulas with more heavy elements. Those nebula then form new stars and planets which should on average have much more rare and valuable resources than planets in the outer rim.

[@micahspacetalk2237]

The reason carriers are still effective is because they're basically mobile airbases. And in the time of the rebellion specifically the early rebellion, a.k.a. rebels mobility is extremely important. if you have a carrier in the background of a battle, you can recover any star fighters at smaller ships that have either their hyper drives, damaged or destroyed entirely.

[@baskkev7459]

I think you are missing major points. - Hyperspace is not star trek warp. Routes can and have been altered by galactic events. They explain in the movies, that gravity can affect hyperspace. Meaning certain routes might have obstakels. - Also hyperspace drives exist in different speed variants. - some routes can be taken, but are dangerous or need markers like in episode 9 - there are also secret routs that can be taken. - hyperspace lanes are like super high ways. Some plants are backwatter planets and you need to take a major lane, then a smaller lane and then a local lane to get somewhere. Like with real road systems Take manikins favorite dirt planet. It's off a major route and a smaller route. In a regin with less resources. So it's a back water. So all in all. Your video makes it sound like this is any of the other sci fi shows or movies. Where you jump from system to system or just fly from star to star. In star wars it's explained a lot it does not work like that. It works with major lanes, medium, smaller etc lanes. Lanes can be cut off, secret lanes exist. Even timing to jump between dangerous space stuff exist. And space is also 3d. So what might look like a flat line on a map. Might be a mountain road. And why some factions are faster? In legend woookies had secret routes. I think I'm cannon, cis fleet that attacked currasant took a secret route. So while I like your videos. I think you are death wrong this time. I think it makes star wars great. Instead easy flying. Space routes like real roads exist. With major roads, back water roads, mountain raids. Roads with danger etc etc And how the spwwd works. Faster engines probably can skip waiting periods or avoid common know "train" crossings. Like a slower ship can not jump fast enough to avoid certain rays and needs to wait at planet x before jumping. While the falcon is fast enough to skip that jump. Also in the shows and movies you rarely see time stamps. So while it looks fast on screen. It might having taken longer time to get there. Same goes for fuel. Hell in star wars rebels refueling is shown..... In empire refueling at hoth is shown.... So again.... Why are you saying that? So very long rant in short. - refueling is shown in screen - reasons for lanes and not straight jumping to systems 2. - a Lada might not make it fast enough to cross both railway crossing before the trains. But a veyron could make it. Could go on. But for now it's enough. Sorry for my first down vote for this video. But to many errors, not getting basic hyperspace star wars stuff straight

[@BuddyCthulhu886]

The Thrawn ascendancy books answer this pretty well. Using an established hyperlane reduces a “jump by jump” journey of weeks or months, down to potentially as little as a few hours. Even the slowest Star Wars hyperdrives are ludicrously fast, even for sci fi, but the overly circuitous routes required of non hyperlane travel produce a barrier to easy traversal if you want to avoid crashing into things. They never do give us a base unit of travel time over a given distance, unfortunately.

[@Carlos-ux7gv]

Star Trek has so many concepts, but poorly coherence between them. There was this one with a hyperlane so dangerous and crowded by debris that no one bothered using them except those desperate enough.

[@skyden24195]

It's interesting that in "A New Hope," Han Solo tells Luke, "Without precise calculations you could fly right into a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that would end your trip real quick." Admittingly, I'm not sure how this relates to your given comment, but somehow, I believe it gives some insight to the general picture of hyperspace travel.

[@josesanchezrodriguez1783]

You pretty much hit the nail on the head with this one. Hyperspace is an alternate dimension, there's pretty much no risk of hitting something in real space while traveling at lightspeed, the problem comes from massive celestial bodies that have significant gravitational pulls that threaten to pull you out of hyperspace and make you crash. Hyperlanes are just big, empty stretches of space that let a ship travel at it's maximum speed whithout risking a crash, whithout them a ship needs to constantly drop out, recheck their position and make new calculations based on the everchanging positions of the celestial bodies around them, and even when traveling along a well transited lane, if your ship's navicomputer is not advanced enough you are going to find yourself needing to do a good portion of your journey at slower-than-light speeds to allow you to obtain calcs and coordinates from navigational beacons.

[@mattstorm360]

@@skyden24195 It could also just be Hans way of explaining without really explaining. You got to calculate things right, there are systems that alert you if you are flying towards a star, emergency systems kick in if a sudden gravity mass appears in your path, etc.

[@justcallmeSheriff]

The X-wing novels, original Thrawn trilogy, and a few other EU series also did a lot of world building around the limits of space travel. Their writers all understood that if you want to build interesting space combat, you need to have some reason why navies can't just go directly to any location.

[@joeallen9104]

Objects with a gravitational pull leave a 'shadow' in hyperspace, that can easily destroy a ship. The hyperspace routes are a result of careful mapping to avoid these shadows. So travel outside of these routes is certainly possible, but extremely dangerous. And in answer to your question at the end of the video, it takes me 20 minutes to visit the nearest shop to buy ice cream.

[@lukesams3349]

Same for me, about 20 minutes

[@kerngezond6953]

2 minutes for mediocre ones. 10 minutes for really good ones. Long live the Netherlands. Who needs hyperspace routes when you have bicycle lanes.

[@kulichkun8709]

For me, it takes exactly 100 steps (I counted, and it's less than a minute walk for me) to buy from a local store at an above average price. 2 locations within a 2 minute radius to buy cheap delicious locally made ice cream, 2 locations within a 4-5 minute radius with premium quality (and price) special ice cream shops, and 2 locations within a 5 minute walk to purchase it from the big stores. And countless shops and ice cream stands within a 15 minute walk (ok, I counted, it's 40 shops, 7 of which are open 24 hours, and 20 ice cream stands) Living in a quiet area in the city center is great.

[@Gala-yp8nx]

And jumping into or exiting from hyperspace too close to a large object should in fact tear the ship apart. In Legends, doing that sort of thing explicitly requires a hyperspace beacon to do safely.

[@Aesoporific]

All that explains is why a direct shot isn't an option. If it takes a few hours to get from A to B and then from B to C and then C to D that's still pretty damn fast. The only way that the shadows make travel time variable is if it takes a lot of time between jumps. The relative danger isn't the issue. The fact of the matter is that it *still* isn't clear how long these trips take and what part of the trip is the slow bit that explains the "distance" that creates and preserves the frontier. If it's that there simply are no safe routes to these places that's one solution, no one does it because it's dangerous creates psychological if not physical distance. That it takes a very long time to calculate the jump, so that you're spending days doing math to get off the beaten path is another. That there is a hard limit to the number of jumps defined by fuel is another. The issue is that we don't know since it doesn't come up very often in canon sources. That we don't have a good sense for how functionally distant things are from one another is a big issue. In history, it doesn't matter that you had to change trains every so often, the fact that there were trains killed the old west. Instead of taking months to walk or weeks to ride a horse to a place you got there in hours or days, even if you can't take the direct shot and have to change trains and wait for the arrival of the next train every now and again. It's still much faster than the alternative and makes getting there much to fast for the area to remain a frontier.

[@samminden1058]

I think the difference between Frodo and Bilbo's journey to Rivendell is fundamentally based on HOW each was trying to get there and for what purpose. In the book, other than the run in with the Trolls, Bilbo and Company don't really have much of a problem getting to Rivendell and don't have (or at least don't know yet) a set time for their quest and also are not travelling in secret (and also have ponies). In both the book and the films, Frodo and friends were very much trying to travel in secret and were also being actively pursued by the Nazgul and other spies for Sauron and Saruman, so as such there is both a greater need for haste but also caution and an inability to take more direct routes.

[@mmcb2910]

Well, I was going to write this comment but since it's already here I'll leave a reply for visibility. Well spoken.

[@skyden24195]

Good call.

[@mmcb2910]

One thing they occurred to me after I wrote the original reply is that the Marc is probably drawing exclusively on the movies for that example, where the difference in time is a lot less obvious because since they add in a bunch of being chased by orcs to the hobbit and trimmed the days of just wandering from both journeys, meaning the two sequences in the movies come out as being very similar to each other in their other details, much more than in the books.

[@samminden1058]

@@mmcb2910 I will say though in the film of Fellowship, there is a good feeling of how long it takes especially in the extended edition, compared to the action for the sake of action in the hobbit movies.

[@eldrago19]

It's always confused me how Gandulf got from the shire to within sight of Mt. Doom in 3 mins of movie time while it took Frodo the best part of 3 films to do the same. Probably just plot pacing.

[@christianbetz2704]

This discussion reminds me of Game of Thrones. The first couple seasons it really feels like Westeros is huge due to the long travel times. Characters naturally get up to adventures while moving between places because that huge world is filled up with people and things. By later seasons characters can practically teleport around making it feel so much smaller and narrow. Not that one or the other is objectively better but the lack of consistency really warped the world and expectations of the audience due to preconceived notions of how the world functioned.

[@raymondcoventry1221]

there's a good video of Varys teleporting around in the last 2 seasona

[@mikedangerdoes]

It really cheapened a lot of the stakes. Half the issues political players had in earlier seasons (and in the books), is that there enemies were in one location and they were in another. Most of the "action" happened en route to somewhere. Jaime Lannister was captured because he was leading a force off in the Riverlands. Tyrion was placed in charge of King's Landing because Tywin had to be elsewhere. Robb Stark betrayed when he needed to secure passage over the Trident...the list goes on. All of that complexity, depth, and character went missing when they just teleported their armies and envoys wherever they needed to be.

[@geroni211]

I think one of the worst parts of that was that logistics was so important in the first few seasons: a whole plot point was how hard it was to get from the north to King's Landing, and that signalled to us that we should care about the rougher details of that world. A great military wasn't just the strength of it's warriors, but theirability to plan and strategize around logistics. Cut to the last two seasons where it felt like it took a few hours or days to get from the north to kings landing and anyone paying atention will notice the change in pace and the less atention paid to logistics and such. It was very jarring when a character could make a decision to move an army and in the next scene the army would be at it's destination, when before that could have been a plot point for an entire season.

[@forrestpenrod2294]

Never bothered me because I assumed time skipped. The point of establishing long distances early in a story isn’t to keep showing people trudging those distances but so people can infer. Now I 100% prefer when logistics and geography factor in a story but with GOT it doesn’t bother me in the same way as in modern Star Wars.

[@piymot8355]

om

[@Pererro4ever]

What's weird is Battlestar Galactica did the plot of TLJ much better in their first normal episode instead of a weird car chase across the universe the Cylons simply appeared in the same system a few minutes later each time

[@davebignell773]

That was a great episode. 33 - because 33 minutes after every jump, the Cylons would jump in and launch an attack. You can even work out (assuming the same second/minute/hour structure irl) exactly how long it had been going on.

[@davebignell773]

That was a great episode. 33 - because 33 minutes after every jump, the Cylons would jump in and launch an attack. You can even work out (assuming the same second/minute/hour structure irl) exactly how long it had been going on.

[@CMVBrielman]

A point a large portion of the audience was discussing when they walked out of the theater. Ah, what an awful sham of a movie.

[@Aikurisu]

lol, everything about that Galactica episode was the chef's kiss. It was a clear case of what happens when you have something written by adults instead of children. ... though, I might be insulting children for what we got with TLJ. I know as a kid I came up with better ideas.

[@nuclearsimian3281]

@@davebignell773 It also helps that they kept track of every single jump on the pilot ready room and other means, so you had a way to know just how long everyone had been awake and working themselves ragged for.

[@tatepultro]

Hyperspace has always been as fast as the speed of the plot. But SW also makes heavy use of cinematic time. For all we know, it actually took days for the Millenium Falcon to reach Yavin 4 from the Alderran system. But in universe, hyperspace itself is still incredibly dangerous and mysterious. You can travel really fast along the trade lanes because they have been heavily explored and you can be certain there's nothing in your way. The second you get off of those lanes you might have to do single system jumps so you don't run into anything. The Thrawn Ascendancy novels go far more in-depth with Hyperspace travel, distance, and travel time and masterfully works it into the plot.

[@michaelramon2411]

As an example of this, the timeline of Empire Strikes Back ONLY makes sense if the Millenium Falcon takes several days to limp from Hoth to Bespin (I believe its hyperdrive is pretty banged up), since Luke is able to fly from Hoth to Dagobah, find Yoda, go through an entire training montage that includes several exercise sequences and then fly from Dagobah to Bespin in maybe a few hours more time than it took the Falcon to reach Bespin. But just watching the movie, you could easily think that the Falcon reached Bespin on the same day it fled Hoth.

[@Hartzilla2007]

"For all we know, it actually took days for the Millenium Falcon to reach Yavin 4 from the Alderran system." Vader: This will be A DAY long remembered. It has seen the end of Kenobi. it will soon see the end of the Rebellion. So no apparently it was a few hours at most.

[@sammywhite5127]

Yeah I think that's the thing before the Disney takeover Star wars was generally pretty good at keeping travel times vague but having like a consistent timescale to them with it generally taking longer times to travel further distances but after the Disney take over they seemed to stop caring I think some of the most egregious examples of this is in the last Jedi literally at the beginning of that film multiple things happen that can only make sense if different amount of times have passed since the last movie all of which contradict each other and then for some baffling reason they gave an exact time that the ships would run out of fuel meaning that literally everything happening from that point near the beginning of the film till near the end has to happen in a 16 hour time frame

[@chrissonofpear1384]

@@michaelramon2411 The old expanded universe reference materials had each movie take place over basically a week - EXCEPT for Empire Strikes Back, where a few times it was suggested to be a month, roughly. In the Disney sequel trilogy, though, time gets shorter and shorter until most of the plot occurs in 16 hours. And in the last film they crisscrossed the galaxy, like, three times, too.

[@rubaiyat300]

@@michaelramon2411 Well there was that whole space worm fiasco.

[@thekingzhaul5914]

Imagine having a FTL engine more wonky than the 40k warp engine

[@attila535]

The infinite improbability drive comes pretty close, instead of flying through super hell you just hit the randomizer button with it.

[@tatepultro]

at least in SW you don't have to worry about literal demons trying to kill you while traveling from point A to B

[@TemplinInstitute]

What's crazy about 40k is how brilliantly it can take uncertainty and make it foundational to the setting. In the lore, 40k warp travel is an inconsistent nightmare. But its consistent in how it portrays that inconsistency. We know the basic rules. 1: Warp travel is extremely dangerous. 2: Shorter jumps are more reliable. 3: Longer jumps can propel you through space and time in unpredictable ways. The technology itself is inconsistent, but the consequences of how that kind of travel affects the galaxy is far better reflected compared to hyperdrive and star wars.

[@artski09]

@@tatepultro but that is half the fun

[@grisom5863]

​@@tatepultro Legends has star weirds. Thankfully they only attack force sensitives.

[@taka2721]

Originally Hyperlanes in SW were connected to the idea that using hyperdrives was dangerous, as you could bump into an object of significant mass and die, and hyperlanes were basically roads that were kept clean of such dangers. However now, I really have no clue what they are for, Episode IX seems to suggest they you can just jump into a planet and then out whithout any issue

[@Dahaka27]

The way I understood that was the pilot (forgot his name) was being incredibly dangerous in doing that. Dropping out of hyperspace and jumping back without getting killed by colliding with the planets was supposed to be basically impossible and few could do it.

[@Zach476]

didn't they almost fly into the ground doing that?

[@josephvisnovsky1462]

When micro jumping at random time intervals, in possibly a straight line, what is the probability of jumping out of hyperspace at any planet and not the vastness of space? Wouldn't existence be occupied by more nothing than matter?

[@CoolMyron]

@@Dahaka27 but he did it like 4 times and the ties behind him did the same. It makes no sense

[@lowellleber1722]

Another reason while VII, VII, and IX should be ignored.

[@teomanduman2731]

And the interesting thing is literally every ship's speed is categorized by it's hyperdrive class but there is simply no logic behind what we see as the templin institue specifies

[@TemplinInstitute]

And if there was any fleet in the galaxy you would expect to include a multitude of different hyperdrive classes, it would be the Rebel Fleet. But, it never comes up so far as I'm aware.

[@janaejoaodosacramento9731]

@@TemplinInstitute About hiper space lanes , if you hit an object with really big gravitational force while on hiper space you just die because they can still affect you

[@HolyknightVader999]

False. Hyperdrive classes only determine how fast you get from one point to another. A .5 class hyperdrive is like taking the Express train in NYC as opposed to the local train that stops at every point. Which again shows a lack of research when one questions these things.

[@HolyknightVader999]

@@TemplinInstitute It's obvious that the rebels standardized their hyperdrives so that they would all arrive at the same point and time. Or they would all set the speed at which they jump on a standardized speed so they all arrive at the same time. Come on, man, this is common sense.

[@geneva214]

I would imagine that ships with higher hyperdrives speeds can slow down in hyperspace like if they were in real space to stay in formation like the Mish mash of rebel ships

[@MaxwellAerialPhotography]

I always like how slipspace worked in Halo. Where the speed of travel wasn’t really determined by the speed of s slipspace drive but instead based on the mathematical accuracy of your destination solution, and how precisely a slipspace core can generate the portal into the dimensions of slipspace.

[@sadiqahmed4143]

And how the target destination feels about you because Neural physics

[@def3ndr887]

So is it the more mistakes you make the travel time can change from hours to days?

[@FunkyDouch3000]

speed was also a factor. Covenant slipspace drives were both faster and more accurate. But you're right, the precision of jumps, or lack thereof, is a key factor in the Halo universe's FTL travel.

[@MaxwellAerialPhotography]

@@def3ndr887 Mistakes end with you reentering real space at the wrong destination or just getting vaporized. Human understanding of slipspace was initially less advanced than that of the Covenant or Forerunners. This meant their calculations were less precise which more or less led to the path human ships took through slipspace being longer or less efficient, as well as the exit point often being half a solar system away from the Intended target.

[@haruhisuzumiya6650]

​@@MaxwellAerialPhotographymeanwhile the covenant can literally slip space in front of a planet

[@infidelheretic923]

What’s also confusing is how apparently close Tatooine was to Naboo. Despite Naboo having a much higher population and level of engagement with the core.

[@kahmul]

admittedly, its not hard to think of why a desert planet would be more backwater than an idillic earth-like planet

[@lordmazzar8316]

It was on a significant hyperspace rout if I’m not mistaken

[@westrim]

Naboo is on the Interstate equivalent, Tatooine is 15 miles off.

[@infidelheretic923]

@@kahmul Yeah so I’m guessing the lack of resources and economic stagnation was more the reason most of the galaxy ignored it.

[@chrissonofpear1384]

@@westrim Funnily enough, on most official maps, Tatooine seems closer to one of the most major routes (The Corellian Run) actually. Although Naboo is more in the 'Mid Rim' than the Outer - or the edge of each, practically.

[@darthsyphilis6008]

I've put a lot of thought into this for my TTRPG. My take is: On a hyperlane, where you can savely travel without calculations or risk, you can travel from one end to the other in a day. When you don't use a hyperlane you have to calculate yourself or travel without hyperspace, it will take days or weeks to get from one system to another. I use the formula that it takes X hours per quadrant on Hyperlanes, X days off lane and X0 days in difficult terrain like the unknown regions and Maw. X is determined by the ship type. So Kenobis Journey from Corouscant to Kamino took, according to my homebrew rules 13 hours of travel on hyperlanes to Ukio and 24 hours of travel with lower speed from there to Kamino.

[@Nostripe361]

I mean, in the show Rebels they sent a smaller ship out to grab the needed fuel to fill up the hyperdrives of the capital ships of the Rebel fleet.

[@arkad6329]

Yeah, it was kinda unimmersive when that republic X wing pilot went from his area of operations, to Coruscant in what feels like half an hour, just to ask permission to help with the pirate problem. Like, couldn’t a space phone call do that?

[@glitterboy2098]

transmissions can be tapped. going in person would preserve the secrecy if he did get the aid he wanted.

[@Gingrnut]

I think that specific bit can be chalked up to him wanting to investigate the situation on Coruscant, but I wish they’d made it seem like that took longer, for sure. He went from Tattoine to his backwater jungle base to Coruscant in what seemed like the same day, but may have been different ones depending on how much leeway we’re giving the edits.

[@arkad6329]

@@glitterboy2098 It’s requesting to go after pirates. It’s not exactly the Manhattan Project.

[@Melggart]

I think this fits into Sanderson's rules of magic (in the end what is FTL if not a kind of "magic"?). You don't need to include consistent rules for it (or make the inconsistency the rule like 40k), but if you don't you can't use it for plot point without making the story poorer. Why were our heros or villains smart, strong, special with their victory? The victory can feel unearned and take the audience out of the story (losing the suspension of disbelief) if the answer is bad. You don't need to detail it if it's not important, but if you make it important you need to detail it.

[@seanpoore2428]

The bilbo frodo example can be explained by the fact that bilbo basically just walked down the road, whereas frodo was fleeing stealthily through the countryside from hunting ghostly horsemen

[@rhymenoceros3303]

The way I always saw it is that how long your hyper space travel took depended on the quality of your hyperdrive, what region of space you were traveling and navigating through, and how much power you could pump into your hyperdrive. That’s how i at least rationalize the different lengths of time we see when it comes to hyperspace travel.

[@blackmage665]

don't we see all sorts of ships, which must have different classes, arriving at the same place at the same time, all the time for the movie spectacle?

[@warbrain1053]

​@@blackmage665probably synchronising power delivery to get in similar times.

[@blackmage665]

@@warbrain1053 except that would make everyone go slowly, which is never the case, is it? you can only go as fast as your slowest ship, if you plan on a similar arrival time. AND then thats a TON of coordination and work.

[@PirateJohnson]

You put all the people doing their MakeUp on the fastest ships, so that they leave at a later time, and just CatchUp...

[@whee38]

​@blackmage665 but it's more important to keep a fleet together and hyperdrives do differ in quality. That's what hyperactive ratings are for

[@revenice1122]

Generally speaking the eu was always inconsistent at the speed of hyperspace but I always got the feeling it was weeks to months of travel time. Disney really didn’t seem like they cared about consistency and just made it an almost instant trip.

[@michaelramon2411]

The galaxy map at 4:50 actually provides a pretty decent explanation for a lot of this. Those lines are the major hyperspace lanes, and make your travel much quicker if the planet you want is on it. The further off of a major route your start or end points are, the longer your trip is going to take. It's like the difference between a major freeway and a dirt road. As for the lack of development in the Outer Rim, the High Republic novels suggest that a lot of the Rim was only settled in the last few hundred years because hyperspace technology was much worse before then. Given the centuries of buildup in the Core and Mid Rim (and the fact that they seem to still have a fair number of sparsely populated planets), it's not surprising that less investment would go to the Outer Rim, even if it isn't that much less accessible.

[@francesco8000]

This is a funny side effect of the 2 sides of star wars "fighting" against each other: the "rule of cool" vs "grounded and logical". The first is the original force of the franchise and it's the foundation for all things that are cool but don't make sense while the 2' appeared later and it's all about the logistic of how things work in the universe. There are dozens of books that explain every single thing about the technology in star wars but at any moment they could be destroyed if the current creator (Lucas, Filoni...anyone) saw something cool the night before and thought "i want to do that!

[@kacperkonieczny7333]

The other way around

[@dx3217]

Honestly accurate especialy in legends and now affecting "cannon" and even george lucas f up sometimes.

[@Melody_Raventress]

Ah, our intrinsic desire to order the patterns of the universe, and the chaos that fights against such orderings. I see no application to real life here, move on.

[@thatthatguy1]

I too like it when storytellers pay attention to the details, and let those details be important to the story.

[@firockfinion3326]

I loved the Vorkosigan Saga novels for this. Not only is the speed of the space travel firmly established, but so is the fastest possible speed of information. There's no FTL solution to sending a call to someone on another planet, so messages have to be ferried by ships like it's the Pony Express in space. It even becomes a significant plot point in one book; a character has to try to send a message to his government to avoid an unnecessary war with another nation, and he knows that it will take around two weeks at least for the message to get there, so he just has to hope that the war doesn't already begin in the meantime.

[@Marylandbrony]

In my rough headcannon, the Galaxy in Star Wars is roughly a week to maybe two of travel. For reference to go from Charlotte Amalie in the Virgin islands to Guam is a little under two days. It's probably way bigger than our own world in travel terms. But certain major places are closer. While New York and Singapore are very far away. They have connecting flights. This is probably true in the Star Wars galaxy. Although Tatooine is probably Barranquilla or Asmara than a London or Tokyo.

[@JeremyBuxman]

Due to how quick they felt to be running in the Sequel trilogy, I head canon that there was some kind of MAJOR improvement in hyperdrive tech from RotJ to TFA. and don't get me started to how many people are zipping around in fighter craft for days or weeks of travel...

[@bustedinsevenseconds1678]

Nothing is quicker than the trips in Revenge of the Sith so I'm not sure what trips you're referring to in the sequels.

[@doctorwhom1]

Consider that mass shadows are what drag things out of hyperspace. Then consider that the Death Star, a moon sized battle station was capable of entering hyperspace and had an enormous hypermatter reactor. If you want a source of scientific breakthroughs in hyperdrive tech there's a really good candidate. My head canon is that the original designers (the engineers, not the crazy sith paying them) originally designed it as an enormous hyperspace research station, which is why they designed it without an actual weapon and O'l Sheev had to retrofit a kyberlaser system into the empty dish.

[@cybersmith_videos]

Given that 30 years have passed, that's not too unreasonable. Certainly, hyperdrives seem to get SMALLER between the PT and the OT, it's not inconceivable they'd get FASTER between the OT and ST.

[@JeremyBuxman]

@@bustedinsevenseconds1678 The *sigh* hyperdrive skipping scenes at the beginning of Rise of Skywalker and the "feel" of the Last Jedi where Space Monte Carlo is close enough for our lifepod-sized hatchback to get to. *shrug*

[@michaelramon2411]

You know, hyperdrives getting faster and better at dealing with gravity fields WOULD explain TRoS's lightspeed-skipping scene, as well as the First Order's use of hyperspace tracking instead of the seemingly-superior Imperial interdiction technology (which became obsolete following these advances). It could also have something to do with fuel sources. The coaxium hyperfuel that was the plot device in the Solo movie can't be the only type of hyperfuel (it's treated as much rarer than oil), but maybe it is substantially better and permits these sorts of feats. Even powerful militaries can only acquire so much of it, however (exactly the amount that the plot needs them to have). I believe that the High Republic books indicate that hyperspace technology (or at least hyperlane scouting technology) was much worse than it is at present only a few hundred years ago, so at least in Canon there is some precedent for major technological advances in this space.

[@bankotsu2a]

I was really annoyed that they allowed hyperspace to work in a planet's atmosphere in the sequels and rouge1. In legends it was clear hyperspace stopped at a planet's gravity well that is how interdictor cruiser's worked and how they still work in rebels

[@GeneralBlackNorway]

That's actually a security feature of the hyper drive that the technically advanced can disable, as without the safety pull out in gravity field they would just crash into the object.

[@patwiggins6969]

I don't think hyperdrive stopped at a planets gravity well. I just think there were a lot more hazards involved. Not only to the ship but to the planet as well

[@celebrim1]

In the RPG, jumping while in the mass shadow of a planet is possible - but you better spend a force point or being a Heroic level astronavigation (or both!) if you do it. The DC of the jump gets radical more difficult and the most likely result is "bad things happen" - like your hyperdrive blows and you exit the jump as a drifting cloud of fine particulate matter. There is a difference between "The universe needs this to be very very hard in order to exist" and "The universe needs this to be impossible in order to exist."

[@bankotsu2a]

@@patwiggins6969 in one of the new jedi order books it is referenced that jumping in a mass shadow would tear the ship apart

[@GeneralBlackNorway]

@@bankotsu2a If we go by the sequels Light Speed Skipping being considered extremely dangerous and the Millenium Falcon being literally on fire, we can assume they are trying to combine the old canon with the new with the caveat that it is very difficult and dangerous, but can be done. Maybe it takes a really good/advanced hyperdrive and/or navicomputer to pull off with reasonable chance of survival. At least that's how they could get away with it in my opinion without making it break the lore of make it over powered.

[@Engineofwarr]

In another universe: It's 105 Million Light Years to Holy Mars, our Geller field is barely functional, We have half a flask of holy oils, the ships lights just went out, the servitors are speaking in tongues, and we are wearing hoods.... Hit it. *Flies through Hell itself to hopefully get there on time... and not before they left or millennia after*

[@angryman2406]

The hyperspace travel rules in Star Wars Saga Edition (a TTRPG), have a lot of factors involved: Navicomputer up to date? Have an astromech? What class of hyperdrive you got? Then once your bonuses penalties are figured out you end up getting a modified die roll that, depending on the above factors, can indicate a travel time ranging from hours (Made a high DC Navigation, and a nice x 0.5 hyperdrive) or weeks (Out of date charts, x 6 hyperdrive). We found it to be a decent compromise between speed of plot and our love of hard sci-fi ala Traveler.

[@soul1d]

Honestly, looking at how the maintenance of spaceships is so varied. I find it amazing entire worlds have not been reduced to cinder by a ship malfunctioning and slamming into the planet at superluminal velocities. Look at the damn millennium falcon, it was falling apart while flying.

[@landlubbber]

As usual, The Expanse does this excellently. Not only are travel times pretty clear (you can get from one end of the system to the other in a few weeks), but the actual travelling is an integral part of the plot and even light speed delay in communication is taken into account

[@jimhughes3961]

Yeah The Expanse was pretty sweet for keeping their travel times somewhat grounded in reality, but was it not said in Season 5 of the show that the travel time from Earth to the Ring was 9 months?

[@landlubbber]

@@jimhughes3961 I was under the impression that at 1-2Gs you can get around in a matter of weeks, potentially 9 months is so you don't kill all the belters on board? Or maybe I was just straight up wrong

[@jimhughes3961]

@Joseph Gear You make a point there maybe if they are burning at full g they could do it in a few weeks but you can't keep pumping a body with that fluid for that long or you stroke out.

[@landlubbber]

@@jimhughes3961 Just another reason it's a phenomenal story, we can come up with realistic explanations even if our maths is slightly wrong

[@dylandarnell3657]

@@jimhughes3961 And 1-2 G would be enough to do that? Wow, belters are flimsy.

[@erikm8373]

From what I know, my assumption was that the time to travel hyperspace routes was based on the routes themselves. X > Y might take only a few hours because there's a direct lane between those. X > Z might take significantly longer, even if the total distance is similar, because X > Z involves a route more like X > A>B>C>D>E>F>G > Z On top of that, given that hyperspace seems to be some kind of subspace, maybe there are literal differences in the routes. X > Y and X > Z are both comparable distances in real space and connected with a single lane, but when you enter hyperspace, suddenly the lane from X > Y is significantly shorter than the lane for X > Z

[@dimitarkiradjiev5987]

This should be a factor, yes. Just not because of anything intrinsic to hyperspace but due to the geography of any given hyperlane. One might have long, empty stretches that allow you to travel vast distances fast in hyperspace without having to exit it, in order to navigate to the next point of a hyperlane and jump back into hyperspace. Another hyperlane might have such a geometry that it would require many short jumps in hyperspace, each followed by existing within a star system, then moving through it to the next area you can safely jump back into the hyperlane. Depending on traffic and how dense said star system is with asteroids and other features, you might end up spending longer in real space at such stop points, instead of actually traveling in hyperspace to cross the galaxy, for example. For an example from the movies, going from Tatooine to Alderaan, depending on how detalied map of the SW galaxy you use, would require exiting hyperspace in at least 15 systems on the way there, moving through them to reach the next entrance point of the hyperlane, then calculating your hyperspace jump and doing it to the next step on the way. While it is not outright stated, given the nature of hypespace, it is possible that it doesn't map one to one with real space. So a clear direct way in real space doesn't necessary pan out for safe travel in hyperspace. In the same vein, objects with big gravity - from gas giants, to stars, super-novas and black holes might have a larger area of effect in hyperspace than they have in real space. The direct result of such an interaction is that if you just take into account what is safe to travel in real space, it might end with your journey hitting a wall that throws you out too close to a star, black hole, super-nova, etc... Ultimately, in all SW movies things tend to happen because the plot required it or it looked good on screen, then the extended universe, no matter if it was Legends or Disney's tries to make things logical... and it sometimes succeeds until the next movie, book, comic or game contradicts a working explanation for the rule of cool, or because whoever wrote them didn't care about consistency. The problem here is that if you have a large universe with many stories you want to tell in it, you need a baseline structure of how things work, otherwise taken as a whole, the project tends to fall apart for anyone who wants a bit more depth than what the latest summer bockbuster tries to offer on average.

[@morlath4767]

@@dimitarkiradjiev5987 You're pretty much spot on, especially the gravity effects. Legends had it where hyperspace was actually "smaller" than realspace. Or rather, everything was closer together because a stellar object's hyperspace size is proportional to their gravity well. Off the top of my head, the underlying idea is that while a ship might be able to fly through the hyperspace gravity echoes, not only does it screw with the direction the ship is travelling, but there's no telling where the gravity goes from "we're dragging a little to one side" to "look out for that planet / what planet? / splat!" As such, ships hyperdrive engines were designed to drop out of hyperspace as soon as a gravity pull of a certain strength was detected. The OT novelisations explain that the ANH trip to Aldaraan took some weeks, and the Falcon's slow crawl took months (I think) which gave Luke the time for his training. The films really screwed the pooch with all the jumping around. Revenge of the Sith's ending sequence especially.

[@victorurrutia2836]

My interpretation for Star Wars travel times usually was that it was fairly fast and that a lot of confusion comes from the extensive use of unlabeled time skips. Like in episode three anakin attacking the Jedi temple and his fight with obiwan on mustifar was at least a few days apart. But another interesting idea that occurs to me is that maybe in Star Wars the limit is not hyper speed but computational power. You can do an instantaneous jump anywhere but you might hit something or miss but it takes time to calculate the route correctly if it’s not a well known route. That could explain both the times that travel takes longer and when ships seem to move from one side of the galaxy to the other immediately.

[@Jedi_Spartan]

4:56 And in comparison to Rise of Skywalker, that looks slow... the entire plot of IX apparently takes place in roughly 16 hours: Kylo finds Sidious, returns to the First Order for a briefing, Hux sends a message to the Resistance, they decode it (giving us the 16 hour time window, which was potentially the time left over when Hux sent the message), Falcon crew go to desert planet 19302.6 and search for the ship, get intercepted by Kylo, go to Kijimi to wipe 3po's memory + rescue Chewbacca, go to not Endor, find the Wayfinder + duel Kylo, split up because plot/character development THEN go to Exegol to stop Palpatine.

[@RorikH]

Also the entire sequel trilogy takes place over less than a year, which seems like a ridiculously short period of time for the first order to terrorize the galaxy. I think I spent more time social distancing for Covid than the Galaxy FFA did cowering from the first order.

[@liamclarke91]

And hyperfuel was never mentioned once.

[@CucumberSadness]

One of the things with TV/Film travel times is that a jump cut during travel can literally include days, weeks, or even years. It is not very clear in the LOTR films that occassionally years have passed between scenes. Star Trek will often include people leaving different activities at the start of scenes to try and make a passage of time seem to occur, but as soon as you put them in battle stations, it can be missed that technically 7 hours have passed in a jump cut. This is then made worse by TV sometimes ignoring travel times because they are working with a short screen time, and showing travel time effectively and in a way that doesn't take a viewer out of the show/film takes much more than just writing “6 days later”. Then you just have someone wanting a dramatic/cool scene at the cost of established lore, or at the cost of needimg the viewer to accept something improbably. "Most starfleetships were near earth at the time for some reason." ... It is worth noting that for parts of A New Hope, it is kinda implied that they spent a long time travelling which gave Luke time to train. The Clone Wars, Rebels, and Bad Batch seem to try and do lore to imply that travel is far from instantanious most of the time. But as with most of Star Wars lore there are few established rules and what rules there are are weak, more like guidelines. It has its own charm I suppose, but is equally infuriating when you like to over analyze things. It was one of the reasons I struggled to get into Star Wars as a kid, because nothing ever made sense, and what arguments people give are not explained during the films and are often ignored later. The Force is a magic plot device that can do what you need when you need it, but can't do it when you don't need it to. Same wtih Hyper Drives, Light Sabers, Crystals, Armour, Gadgets, Shields, Guns. A large reason for this is because it comes from the rule of cool Hollywood and breed of story tellers. Rule of Cool is the law of the universe they follow and it manipulates every other law and rule. Even the laws that govern our own world are meer play things to the Rule of Cool.

[@nuclearsimian3281]

That point with LOTR only happens once, and its not conveyed well, sure, but if you only have Gandalf disappear for eleven years at the very start of the story, then its much easier to handwave.

[@WillyShakes]

Right now we could get a standard passenger airliner and travel around the world on the equator in 45 hours. Of all the countries in the world, only five countries have no airport(Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City) Despite this, there are still nations that are underdeveloped, impoverished, and it's people less aware of the wider goings on in the world. You could write up the underdeveloped, impoverished, "remote" Outer Rim planets in the same way.

[@altasilvapuer]

This is one of my favourite videos you've ever done. Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, but in the end that just means it needs to follow the rules of well-written magic: Create boundaries. Know those boundaries. Respect and use those boundaries. For those who don't care, they likely won't notice either option, so there's no loss for doing that work. For those of us who do, though, failing to do this work hinders our ability to immerse ourselves in the story and enjoy it to the fullest. If I'm constantly distracted by the slapdash and inconsistent way critical structural elements of the universe are portrayed, I'll never have time to imagine myself in that world.

[@leesnotbritish5386]

Remember that episode where some Jedi was trapped under rubble, and so to get help he sent his droid to get help, by flying all the way to courasont to ask for help, in person, and then they flew all the way back

[@reaIixx]

Nah that's Clone Wars which is perfect by definition so that can't have happened................. ......right?

[@datzfatz2368]

​@@reaIixxas one of the biggest clone wars fanboys in the known galaxy, i will say yes, that happened and it was very stupid^^ when clone wars is good, its really good, but when it goes Bad its also really bad^^

[@campbellhouston3798]

Not a SW expert, but what if the hyperspace lanes were constantly changing? For every story getting from A to B can take exactly as long as the writer needs it to.

[@Valkyrien04]

IIRC they CAN but its rare, front page news major event rare.

[@charlesfisher-kh5sw]

this is exactly what he's complaining about

[@yokaiou5848]

They do but it takes millennia. That's how planets like Tython are lost for millenia. It doesn't change every Tuesday.

[@Plagueis10]

There are some that do though epecially in the unknown amd expanse regions.

[@peacemaker63604]

Tython is a unique case, as it is so connected to the force that if the force shifts away from neutral on either side, natural disasters start occurring, as in jedi and sith were nonexistent because their mere presence would cause devastating floods and earthquakes.

[@jhmcd2]

I like writting short stories in a scifi setting, and when I do (I drink Dos Eques...no) I always try to figure out two things first, distance and speed. I think those are the two of the most important rules for any scifi universe. Classic Trek (TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT) had an idea of how long it took to get from place to place to place and generally followed those rules all the time...generally. The problem typically comes when writers forget or dont care, and Star Wars has rarely cared. The maps we use for Star Wars came over a decade after the films were made, and they werent made by the production team. As a result they never consulted them for anything. It was always only ever concerned about spetical. To make matters worse, the sequel era only cares about what looks good on screen, whether it works or not even if it doesnt keep its rules straight or not. And that is what made the sequal era just collapse under its own weight. It could not do its world building and worldbuilding will always be the most important part of any story.

[@admiralcasperr]

I always assumed that a trip from Curuscant to some backwater not too far from the Corellian Run would take less then a week, perhaps two or three days. But, its much more apt to imagine this like public communication. The major hyperspace routes is your metro. Things by the metro line are close together. The well established, but not the powerhouses like Hydian Way would be like taking a tram. Slower and clunkier then metro but still goes beside the jams instead of with them. Then you got your buss equivalents, minor lanes that wind and curve through different places. Still medium to well maintained passages, but sometimes you need to drop out to pass an asteroid field or whatever space terrain there would be in star wars. At last we have the small routes that are small, and more a trail then a proper road. This is like going somewhere on foot. Takes ages to get anywhere, while you can travel the same distance in 10 minutes by metro. I just now realise that Americans won't get this. Well.

[@UGNAvalon]

Americans: It’s like using a 70 Freedoms Per Hour expressway btwn 2 major cities vs using an unpaved road btwn 2 small towns. :D

[@Bear-form]

​@@UGNAvalon Never been to France I see.

[@UGNAvalon]

@@Bear-form Nope, born & raised in the American Midwest! :D

[@EmpPeng2k7]

at the same time Straczynski openly admitted that travel in Babylon 5 was whatever the plot demanded, and yet the series is hailed of a cornerstone. the only people upset by handwaved time are those obsessed with modelling the universe, its annoying yes, but it doesnt ruin a franchise

[@jeezed2950]

Hyperdrive is actually theoretically more plausible than warp drive. And hyperspace travel never rakes more than a few days to a week. However, hyperspace lanes are a thing, its like getting on a fast travel highway

[@yeboi2379]

Can you clean up your spelling.

[@surprisedlobsta8543]

@@yeboi2379 they didn't misspell anything lol

[@janaejoaodosacramento9731]

It’s more of a security thing, if you hit an object with really big gravitational force while on hiper space you just die because they can still affect you

[@drksideofthewal]

I wouldn’t say Hyperdrive is more plausible than Warp Drive. While there’s no known traversable dimension where the speed of light doesn’t apply, the concept of “warping space” actually has some scientific basis. See Alcubierre drive.

[@travcollier]

I too prefer hyperspace... Instead of coming up with various ways to break (or ignore) the laws of physics as we understand them... and invariably not bothering to think through the consequences... hyperspace is just something outside our current knowledge. Also a nice place to hide some Lovecraftian horrors ;)

[@pysan3477]

To be fair, though, inconsistent/faulty FTL travel can make for some quite interesting and original worlds/stories. Just look at the Warhammer 40k and their Warp travel, one of my favourite stories of that universe was that one time when a ship from the golden age of humanity ended up arriving at its target thousands of years later during the Imperium era and killed by the natives of that time (though that scenario specifically used an actual time travel if I remember correctly). But yeah, Star Wars sadly doesn't do anything interesting with its FTL travel.

[@nick-hu1nx]

at least 40k specifically explains why that is and the answer boils down "hell" weather which is very intuitive for us as the reader. weather can be a pain.

[@pysan3477]

@@nick-hu1nx Yeah, I can't really argue with that. Honestly, I kinda wish more franchises used similar FTL.

[@everythingsgonnabealright8888]

Replied and explained in other replies in this comment section. Basically, 40k is adept at employing inconsistency, it’s consistent in it’s inconsistency. Star Wars aren’t.

[@datzfatz2368]

Disney Star Wars cant. Back in the good old EU days it was much more consistent and interesting.

[@generalsmite7167]

I think the ideas behind hyperspace are good and interesting with speed depending on hyperdrive quality, power output, the quality of hyperlanes, the quality of your navigation computer, and other factors. The problem is the time is inconsistent. I think that the travel should take days and maybe weeks but not instantly

[@GamerX13X]

I wouldn't be surprised if i learned that Legends novels/comics and such did a much better job of spelling this all out for us. But as we see in the movies and shows, it really is weirdly inconsistent.

[@justinweber4977]

I remember having a Star Wars tabletop RPG rulebook I had gave a travel time from the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim as anywhere from about a week to about a month, depending on the class of hyperdrive your ship has.

[@peterwong8028]

I always felt (at least in my head) travel times were equivalent to travel times aircraft get to A-B in our world only because then it would be more familiar to us. For instance, Coruscant to the outer rim would be like the time it took you to fly from NY to Australia. Coruscant to Naboo, NY > LA.

[@icebot3045]

As most have said, I feel that the Thrawn Ascendency books do it best, you can travel along dedicated Hyperspace routes and make a journey over ~20 systems in a few hours, but go "jump by jump" to make sure you don't hit anything and you'll be looking at a journey over days across the same number of systems.

[@paulhudson8725]

Damn it now i want a cornetto...thats a 15min walk, 5 mins to get dressed and 30mins to find my damn housekeys

[@kennyholmes5196]

the EU actually had a map of Hyperspace, but then Disney wiped it out.

[@sith7183]

Disney StarWars is not canon.

[@kennyholmes5196]

@@sith7183 Then we can use the EU hyperspace map to know how long things really took.

[@chrissonofpear1384]

@@kennyholmes5196 As far as I know, most of the maps are still basically the same, it's just travel times (previously the purview of some RPG sources, like West End Games and Wizards of the Coast) have been largely taken out. We see major hyperspace lanes still on most of the maps, even if often unnamed. Hyperspace itself though - I do not remember a specific map. More recent sources also hint every 'jump tunnel' is separate, and temporary, seemingly.

[@raymondlegorreta3269]

In the canon Star Wars RPG books from FFG it describes Hyperspace Travel Times as: 10-24 hrs within a Sector. 10-72hrs within a Region. 3 days to a week between Regions. And 1-3 weeks across the Galaxy. This info is based off a Class 1 Hyperdrive. It doubles and triples for Class 2 and 3 and so on and so forth for each other class of drive. So with a Class 1 Drive from Tatooine (Outer Rim) to Coruscant (Core) it would be between 3 days to a week depending on the route used/calculated. interstellar phenomenon, and mass shadows. So essentially depends on traffic lol

[@Carlos-ux7gv]

I kinda like the 40k hyperdrive concept. Basically every warp is part suicide mission part missing your target.

[@IN-tm8mw]

Dude, love this topic. I was just planning out my own FTL system using the concept of wave currents. Stronger ships and better pilots can navigate the stronger lanes or depths thus traveling faster. while safer travel is regulated to expected speeds or levels with approximate travel times. Haven't fully got everything down yet but this video makes me want to flesh it out more.

[@Kalebfenoir]

Finally, someone talks about DISTANCE and it's effect on a story universe, and how it can absolutely wreck it when it's not thought about. I have had SO many arguments....

[@J_n..]

10:00 "movement at the speed of truth is much slower tha the speed of lies" made my day

[@paulrhome6164]

The time it takes to travel between any two points in the Star Wars galaxy is the same as any two locations in Westeros...... One scene in between departure and arrival.

[@patwiggins6969]

Yeh John Wayne riding a horse for 18 hours would get dull after a while

[@mihajlo961x]

Nothing else to add other then brilliant scripting, TI! Every word you choose seems so deliberate. Well done!

[@forger03]

In the old expanded universe, especially the novels, the distance and time required for hyperspace mattered. I missed those days greatly and I would much prefer if we went back to them.

[@zingbop4069]

One of my favorite parts of Star Wars is a sense of unfathomable scale: tens of thousands of planets/species with dozens of trillions of beings exist, and ancient civilizations/ruins can be forgotten about for thousands of years. 20,000 Star Destroyers can't even cover every inhabited planet, let alone the billions of stations, asteroid fields, Hoth-esques, etc that might harbor pirates, rebels, and outcasts. Petty warlords, factory owners, cartels, militias, and cults carve out tiny fiefdoms that go undisturbed, or else simply bribe/tribute away the rare incursions of larger authorities. The relative paucity of starships means even a corvette or gunship can represent a sector-wide scourge. Your point about hyperspace inconsistency undermines all of that, and represents a huge missed opportunity for drama and world building. Great video, thanks for elaborating on such a critical building block that so frequently gets fudged by various creators.

[@Croz89]

I think the idea of a vast difference in speed and fuel efficiency depending on hyperdrive classes makes the most sense. It could be compared to supersonic and subsonic air travel on our own world. High speed hyperspace travel is for the rich and the military (though I imagine in the SW universe those X-wings have a very fast hyperdrive but with a very short range so need a chain of tankers to go any appreciable distance), everyone else uses slower hyperspace travel and sticks to established hyperlanes. So for the average citizen on Tatooine, Coruscant is a few weeks away via the equivalent of a space greyhound charging bargain prices, conversely, Han Solo as a smuggler spends a disproportionate amount of credits on just keeping his thirsty hot rod of a hyperdrive fuelled so he can be a long way away very quickly if he runs into trouble. The Empire's Star Destroyers have very fast hyperdrives as well, but they probably don't run them at full whack unless there's an urgent need to be somewhere, so your typical patrol will take its time, it's cheaper to slow steam and be out for longer than zip across the galaxy all the time.

[@ninsegtari]

There were no rules established and many ignore them for the purpose of the story. There are some EU rules though: 1. The map of the galaxy as found on Wikipedia has a grid pattern overlay. One square equals one day for a Class 1 hyperdrive. 2. In the Thrawn Trilogy, there is a section where Mara Jade is narrating a section of the book and discussing the fact that a Victory-class Star Destroyer's normal flank speed is 0.45, but it can be pushed up to 0.5 which covers 127 light-years per hour (3,048 Ly per day).

[@Plagueis10]

I heard a few questions that did in fact have an answer, however you will have to read data books and novels for them. Hyperspace means at or GREATER than lighspeed meaning there very well can be a meaningful difference in engine type/power cells. X wings have the slowest..type 4 while most imp ships like ISD have type 2 or 1. The # of power cells also dictactes how many of these jumps you can make before tapping into other systems. Also xwings dont have storage, resting, or restrooms so you could naturally assume it was not well suited for long distance travel. Travel through space can be done in a number of different ways however the established hyperlanes are dictated to be the fastest SAFE way to travel. Han, Lando, Talon, a number of people sometimes know of better routes in fact; namely smugglers and bounty hunters. I know the fourth wall is broken a few times in films but novels remedy this really well.

[@henrywilson2136]

It depends on the hyper lanes that connects the galaxy. In addition, the class of hyperdrive can have an impact.

[@raideurng2508]

Tearing a hole into a hell dimension is still the best god damn FTL I've ever seen.

[@jamesgaddis6189]

Class of Hyperdrive engine, but still referred to it as "jumping to lightspeed". Lightspeed to Hyperspace, no more head scratches. "Hang on, we're gonna make a jump to Hyperspace"

[@harrisonirving8751]

In both legend and cannon books hyperspace travel clearly takes days to weeks, although it can be faster if there is an established hyperspace route the entire way. In legends the only way Luke can roam the galaxy in an X-wing is by going into meditation so that he barely breathes. one of the main things that extends the length is if they're is no established route or it's changed because of systems moving into the route, then you have to go some distance in a route, exit hyperspace and wait for the computer to find a new path.

[@rebelcommander7starwarsjur922]

The hyperspace lanes are safe travel lanes if the route is not properly secured and you don’t use the route you end up possibly running into a a planet or Star or galactic object. Hyperspace (in lose terms) is a dimension that shortens the space between two points but each object casts a shadow into hyperspace in other terms the distance between to objects is shorter but all the objects are still there so if you don’t follow a hyperspace route you run the risk of running into an object during hyperspace and dying

[@Raycloud]

I've always considered the perception of Hyperdrive being very very fast , as in only hours, to be movie magic.

[@Jayjay-qe6um]

In Star Wars Legends, the hyperdrive allowed travelers a galaxy spanning over 120,000 light-years in only a few hours or days, the exact travel time depending on a number of factors including destination, point of origin, route, and class of hyperdrive.

[@ryank5424]

I usually just assume that a trip took a while, we just didn't see the whole trip for obvious reasons. But if there are set rules in a property for how something like FTL travels works, then they need to be followed

[@summertime69]

I think one major reason why i struggle with stories that have a heavy space element is that the planet is always portrayed an a monolithe. Tattoonie being listed as remote or Jakku being an all sand planet doesnt really make sense in my brain because our planet, as amazing as it is, isnt all one thing. So maybe Luke says its a remote planet but really its just a remote part of the planet. The transport ships dont get near him for months or years... When were talking about big star space, physical space seems realtive. Its just one more thing that makes it hard for me to suspend my disbelief.

[@mrdrprof8402]

God shit like light speed skipping bothered me so much. You're telling me you're jumping almost instantly to a whole ass new planet but stopping precisely enough that you only almost run into something. The OT didn't make it clear but given they had time to hang around the ship in light speed it felt like they were at least like driving a town over.

[@DravisOnline]

Closing with a Warhammer reference was a mic drop moment. Well played.

[@daniellanczi-wilson9549]

There's a line in Empire Strikes Back after the Imperials lose track of the Millennium Falcon, which is implied to take place mere minutes or hours later: "They could be on the other side of the galaxy by now." Maybe it's hyperbole but, if not, it demonstrates that, canonically, a fast ship like the Falcon can cross the galaxy in a matter of hours

[@Arclight104]

Hyperspace ram had a solution in the old EU, the gravity well generators on interdictor ships were supposed to protect against ramming by literally ripping ships out of hyperspace. New Canon seems to have interdictors but they are not ubiquitous as they really should be for both sides militaries

[@kennyholmes5196]

There was also an understanding that the target would be basically unharmed aside from being knocked around a little bit, whereas the impactor would get utterly shredded, IIRC.

[@marcusmoonstein242]

I've always conceptualized the SW hyperdrive as analogous to driving a car in the continental US. It's possible to use the US interstate highways to drive a car from one side of the country to another in a few days if you want to, but there are still backwater towns that are off the main routes and therefore economically and culturally isolated.

[@glitterpede]

Standard hyperspace travel is probably akin to modern air travel on Earth. There are lots and lots of people who could get from the eastern U.S. to Japan, for example, in a matter of hours - but plenty of people around the world have never taken a flight due to resources or lack of interest or for some other reason.

[@hedinsee6830]

And while the hyperspace was never hammered down in any way in SW, funny how it became not only highly noticeable, but actually problematic only when darth mouse got its hands on the universe. Almost like it used to follow some logical storytelling rules before but now they are thrown out of a window.

[@delb2192]

I'm so glad people are talking about this, I've never been a big fan of Star War's loose rules. I fall somewhere in the middle of your two interpretations, but closer on the scale towards hyperdrives being slow

[@billylee322]

Real SW and the EU addressed this, it wasn't instantaneous. Just another retcon screwing the universe for nonsensical Disney stories focused on idiocy rather than respecting the lore

[@scotthouston8486]

Something that needs to be addressed unfortunately is that JJ Abrams does not know how to convey travel time and distance in his movies. He has the same issue in his star treks. "helm we are at kronos take us to earth in going to interrogate Khan" *in the time it takes for Kirk to leave the bridge and have a 5 minute talk with Khan* "bridge to Kirk we are at earth"

[@AndoCommando1000]

Think of the SW galaxy like you would a sort of meta-city. Hyperspace Lanes = taking a metro. You have high-travelled super-routes that are well populated in a linear or networked fashion, even at long distances. But there are always difficult zones of inaccessibility in the gaps - even though they might be closer as the crow flies, you've got to cross a river, there's no tube, only two separate bus routes, a walk across a pedestrian bridge, and then you have to kind of skirt around the side of some warehouses and walking through some maze-like alleyways and across a car park to get to your final destination. That's an entirely hypothetical example. But even in London, there are some places on the other side of the river and on the other side of the city - and I can get to those places faster than some quiet, sleepy or dodgy suburbs that are geographically closer and on the same side as the river. In fact, if you take the right train, you can get to entirely different cities in other parts of England faster than you could cross some extremities of London from some far flung satellite village.

[@edwardkarppi436]

What has been consistent about hyperdrive from the beginning, though, is that it’s more about knowing your route than speed. That’s what Han says in ANH. Also in Solo-the other Star Wars movie to talk about hyperdrive fuel-we learn that the Millennium Falcon is fast not because it has a good engine (necessarily) but because it has a better computer than any other ship. There can also be different uses for lanes. I can imagine that during a massive galactic war some hyperspace lanes would be shut down or restricted for military and diplomatic use only. Also traffic might be an issue? Like Tatooine might be on the equivalent of a two lane road in the middle of nowhere. Sure it’s small and poorly maintained, but if you’re brave enough or know it well enough, you can fly down it 80 or 100 mph.

[@rumsmuggler30]

Solo has both a great navigation system and one of the fastest hyperdrives in the galaxy.

[@raymondcoventry1221]

The core of the issue in all these properties is that we the fans take techincal manuals seriously, while the writers do not. Until a central authority exists to enforce conformity to canon within these storyverses the inconsistencies will continue to pile up till we choke on it. I've already choked on Star Wars and Star Trek, they're both all but dead to me due to the years of mismanangment and dismissal of canon. I am within 5 minutes of ice cream should I so desire.

[@rolypoly4920]

Assuming you have access to current Astrogation data from the Holonet or another reliable source, and are using a Navcomputer properly, trips between any two places takes 1d6 days x the hyperdrive rating. So assuming you have a x1 hyperdrive, you can get anywhere in the known galaxy within 6 days. (The Millennium Falcon had a x0.75.) Its possible to take a more aggressive course to lower the time, but can never be made lower than 1 hour. So the actual distance between locations is mostly irrelevant. It can take longer to jump one star system over than it takes to go across the galaxy. Hyperspace is weird like that, with shifting currents and random spatial conditions. This is all from the Star Wars Saga RPG books, which really aren't canon anymore, but I like the concept that hyperspace is so weird that you can never quite be sure when you will get somewhere beyond a vague educated guess.

[@thosewhocando]

In Legends they had this more nailed down. However the more resent movies messed things up completely. Original ships were limited by their hyperdrive and how well mapped an area of space was. That’s why “hyper space routes” were important. They were extremely well mapped and updated. So even a relatively slow bulk freighter could cover them in a short amount of time. A route had little or no navigation data was much slower as every little gravity well had to be avoided. So a relatively fast ship could take days. So it might be more efficient to go through known, highly updated routs vs straight to your destination. The distance in real space might be longer but the maps allowed for faster navigation. Then the new movies came out and screwed that all up. 🤷‍♂️

[@KiwiEmpire4640]

It takes me about 20 minutes to get to the nearest place to buy ice cream and in order to get said ice cream, I have to enter the dimension of a store. Filled with demons called Humans.

[@lewismassie]

I think the real issue is how Star Wars tries to make it make sense but actually it just moves at the speed of plot. Babylon 5 never tries to put a speed on its Hyperspace travel and it feels much less artificial for it. ".5 past lightspeed" really is a throwaway line. I would also not choose to read pacing from a film too much. The book Revelation Space hops back and forth in time by several decades so that it can line up all the timelines with multi-decade interstellar travels. Very thoughtfully put together video through. You have a great ability to creatively fill in gaps in stories

[@patwiggins6969]

.5 past lightspeed would take almost 3 years for earthlings to get to the nearest star. I'd be super impressed if we could do that but it does slow the movie down a bit lol

[@Toonlord27]

There's a reason I stopped considering star wars Sci-Fi and instead more of a space fantasy. Outside of the EU it always felt so all over the place with the rules of the universe.

[@verybigbrain1]

It's the soft vs hard magic/tech system problem. If your system is soft then it can't be used to solve or present problems in a satisfactory manner. If it is hard you have to follow the rules all the time which puts limits on the stories you can tell.

[@MarkHaldaneArt]

I always liked the idea that hyperspace travel could take days or longer, although I'm not sure where I go that notion from. However when Din Djarin was happy to make a starfighter his primary mode of transportation, a ship with no room to move, no bed, kitchen, bathroom, etc., I had to accept that-unless he's making pit stops along the way-he can get anywhere in the galaxy in hours.

[@Bryzerse]

I always imagine the Star Wars distances to be like earth, as in you could spend a few hours flying to the Australia outback in your private jet, but it would cost a fortune and there are places that might be more worthwhile going to - just as a comparison to Tatooine. But sequels really couldn't handle hyperspace anyway.

[@MagiconIce]

Imho outside using hyperspace routes a possible explanation could be the difference of military vs civilian vessels. When Obiwan did travel from one end of the galaxy to the other in his time during the Republic and the Civil War, he had access to state-of-the-art military-grade ships, seemingly also explicitely built for scouting or messaging tasks, so they were small, nimble and quick. So even if he had to leave a hyperspace route, he could quickly travel from A to B, possibly also with classified hyperspace routes or his ship could scan ahead for obstacles, to leave hyperspace in time before he crashes into something. Civilian Vessels and older vessels probably don't have all these features, hence they rely so much on the publicly known hyperspace routes, hence Outer Rim Worlds off these routes are so remote, because it really could take, instead of hours, days or weeks to get there, at least for civilian vessels. And this also might explain why the Rebels could jump between 2 locations, that are not connected by any Hyperspace Route, within hours, the X-Wing was supposed to be an Imperial Fighter but the design got stolen by the Rebels, so maybe they stole military hyperspace route charts with them or got them from some other black market source? For a guerilla army, that is dependent on being able to quickly move from A to B, strike their target and then vanish by quickly going to point C, before the Imperial Response Force comes, this makes sense. And it also might explain why Imperial Forces can sometimes very quickly appear seemingly out of Thin Air. Why the Imperium focuses on ISD's as carriers and X-Wings can travel through Hyperspace on their own while the TIE-Fighters can't is imho explainable through cost factors, probably hyper-space drives, especially military grade ones, are expensive and the Empire, unlike the Rebels, is a galaxy-wide state, in need of having a navy that can patrol every inch of it. It doesn't necessarily need TIE-fighters with hyper drives for that purpose, but it needs ludicrously large amounts of them for policing the galaxy. So going without Hyperdrives for the individual TIE-fighter makes them probably a lot cheaper and it is simply more cost-efficient to instead transport them with Hyperdrive-equipped ISD's. The Rebel Alliance, as said, stole the initial X-Wings and probably their blueprints, while the Y-Wings, they use, are older bomber designs from the days of the Galactic Civil War, so they were already around and resources and equipment they get in some way cheaper, since many people simply hate the Empire and want to get rid of them. So a Rebel-sympathetic trader might forego his profit margin and give occassionally a hyperdrive to them at net zero or even a loss, depending on how strong his convictions are and charge premium other customers (which might explain why Civilian Craft are slower too, they simply use older, cheaper drives). And the Rebels, as a guerilla movement, don't have the same number of ships as the Imperial Navy, they're overall probably way, way smaller. But they can choose their engagement targets, hence they run from stronger opposition like Imperial Fleets and strike weak targets and come out on top. So they got way lower cost overall and an unknown amount of income in cash and equipment and resources. But I agree, the new movie trilogy is crap. Either hyperdrive fuel is abundant, hence it never got mentioned before in any work of Star Wars, then it is not plausible to run out of fuel or it is not abundant, then all the other Star Wars Works, Legends or Disney Canon, wouldn't make sense for not mentioning that even once. I choose to believe that just the new trilogy is crap and it was an inverse deus-ex-machina to create tension by bringing the Rebels into trouble. Regarding the Question, while no First Order Ship jumped in front of the Rebel Fleet there, I think Star Wars in all it's works makes it clear, that Hyperdrive Travel seemingly also is no exact science and not so top-notch-accurate, so a shipf of theirs at attempting this could've crashed into them. Or it is just that their evil commanders enjoyed taking out the Rebelships one by one.

[@Firefocus-fz2we]

I think SW5e has pretty interesting table for the Hyperspace travel.

[@tangero3462]

I think the second, more connected suggestion makes sense with the scale of Star Wars, which is really hard to convey with the galaxy maps we have available. It's like a highway atlas in here in the States--you'll see the big cities and the local capitols and places people will want to go, but there are an insane number of habitable worlds (with habitable also being a sliding scale based on species) and it makes sense that many would just not receive attention

[@themercer4972]

Iv done some space fiction writing and the best rule of thumb Iv settled on is; "normal ships can go 1 light year per day". This may seem slow but it has a great value of being intuitive and easy to remember. Need to travel 12 LY to a star system for a diplomatic mission, that will be 12 days travel time. With a base line rule like that we can then make some top of the line ships a bit faster and old clunkers a bit slower, if you need to shave off a few days or add a few days for the story to work.

[@RazielTheLost]

"he might not have liked the empire" regardless if this is true or not, luke badly wanted to join an empire academy

[@sethb3090]

It's worth pointing out that the T-65 X-Wing was a brand-new advanced multirole fighter with an unprecedented combination of agility, firepower, shielding, sensors, and range. Getting a military hyperdrive inside a snub fighter that was also supposed to be able to dogfight was fairly new.

[@MaxwellAerialPhotography]

I don’t know, think of where we live, Calgary Alberta. From Calgary International, you can fly to almost anywhere on earth within 36-72 hours. But then think about some one living only a few hours drive from Calgary, in say Pincher Creek, Vulcan, or Hanna, they can within the nearly the same amount of time go anywhere in the world. Yet, you would feel much more isolated or detached from the wider world because these aren’t places that the wider world thinks or cares about, they must important to the surrounding region but they aren’t important to the rest of the planet. Some young boys working at a small cafe in Hanna might yearn for adventure in far away place, not away that will be inflicting great harm upon the World by setting forth in such an adventure. Sort of travel isn’t everything, cost for one I think plays a much greater role, along with access to good and services from being your region.

[@occultatumquaestio5226]

So we do know that the two main factors determining hyperspace speeds are the class of hyperdrive and what hyperspace lanes are being taken. What we don't know is the approximate actual speed for both these factors, independently nor with each other. Then there is also the consideration on how much hyperdrive speeds have improved over the 25,000+ years of the tech existing. Star Wars, like a lot of Sci-Fi unfortunately is inconsistent with in-universe transit times. It'd be nice to have more specifics.

[@spartantraveler7251]

One thing to consider is the distance between each egress point, the area which hyperspace can be accessed. The distance between two egress point may be a whole system, or just a few light minutes. The first one may take over a week to cross, and the latter a few hours. Factoring in that and the currents of Hyperspace which makes it's speed inconsistent across different lanes, travel time varies a lot.