In canon you see a ship jump into hyperspace from within a planet's atmosphere, and thus well within its gravity well in The Clone Wars season one episode Jedi Crash

In Legends the planet Pammant was effectively destroyed when a Republic warship accidentally jumped to hyperspace and crashed into it. I'm wondering if something like this is how Anaxes was destroyed in canon but AFAIK that destruction has not been explained,

Navsystems and starship sensors come equipped with safety systems to prevent such accidents and that is Interdictors do. They cause the sensors to believe there is something nearby making it dangerous to enter or travel through hyperspace which triggers the safties to either drop the ship to realspace or prevent the jump.

I don't recall the hyperspace jump in Jedi Crash and as some of the worst episodes in the series, I don't feel like re-watching them. I would be slightly surprised if it was as clear-cut as you say but I'll leave that to someone who has seen it more recently. But given the argument appears to be stemming from this idea that you can cause massive destruction by hyperspacing into a planet, it makes you wonder why, if that were true, you have old-fashioned bombing raids, etc. Every X-Wing, Millenium Falcon or junk freighter would be a devastating weapon of war. Not to mention why actual weapons of war wouldn't be designed on that principle. It makes one immediately wonder why they would bother with a trench run and the highly difficult shot of getting the photon torpedo down the exhaust port when I'm sure the rebels could have found one in their number willing to bring their X-Wing out of hyperspace in the middle of the Death Star. Or gotten R2-D2 to do it if they didn't want to lose any lives. What you're hypothesizing here doesn't seem to fit with the universe as portrayed, imo.

My best guess is that to take out something the size of the Death Star would take a ship with a lot more mass then a fighter or even the Falcon. not to mention needing time to bypass the safeties

Also for such a technique to be effective you would need precise data on where the target is to plot the jump. Aiming at a planet especially one in a highly populated and well known system with well known orbital paths would much easier then aiming at a ship or a mobile Battlestation.

My best guess is that to take out something the size of the Death Star would take a ship with a lot more mass then a fighter or even the Falcon. not to mention needing time to bypass the safeties

Also for such a technique to be effective you would need precise data on where the target is to plot the jump. Aiming at a planet especially one in a highly populated and well known system with well known orbital paths would much easier then aiming at a ship or a mobile Battlestation.

You have a "rogue warship" destroying a planet but an x-wing can't do catastrophic damage to something with at least three of orders magnitude less mass and far more critical systems? That's inconsistent with itself as well as being inconsistent with canon media - if this was a viable approach why is it not a standard part of warfare?

I don't think the "need time to disable safeties" is a valid counter-argument either. Why did many bothans have to die to obtain those plans? Is it harder to "disable the safeties" than it is to obtain a complete technical readout for the empire's secret weapon, or more time-consuming to do so than to search through exabytes of schematics for a weakpoint? And if the Alliance is planning to go up against the Death Star why don't they have an X-Wing or similar ready to do this already? The only explanation that fits is that such tactics are not viable.

I'm unconvinced by the "need to know its precise location" too. I mean, it's right in front of you - you're looking at it! How precise a location do you need? Anakin was able to come out of hyperspace right behind another ship in TCW. And that was from another star system. With the Death Star, no intervening masses, no shifting celestial bodies or out of date co-ordinates. Just aim and fly. None of what you're proposing holds together.

The warship was a heavy battlecruiser about 30 times longer then an X-Wing and no one knows how much it outmassed a fighter as far as I know. You would need a capital sized ship to pull this off and be in such desperate straits that someone, be it organic or droid is willing to commit suicide.

If your only evidence to support your claim that it isn't possible is that it hasn't been shown happening basically this should be over.

I've given proof that such things can happen accidentally in both canon and legends, though admittedly we don't know the destructive force in canon. If you are claiming that the malfunction can't be duplicated intentionally then feel free to provide actual evidence backing your claim. And it not having been done before onscreen does not count.

The battleship in question was a Praetor-class cruiser. A 4-KM long behemoth that is larger than anything fielded in the Galactic Civil War.

The warship was a heavy battlecruiser about 30 times longer then an X-Wing and no one knows how much it outmassed a fighter as far as I know. You would need a capital sized ship to pull this off and be in such desperate straits that someone, be it organic or droid is willing to commit suicide.

Wait. Are you trying to argue based on something from Legends? That has no bearing. Regardless, I don't think you have a grasp of the relative masses here. You could fit fifty of Earth's moons into the Earth itself. The Death Star isn't going to be a tenth of a planet. Or a hundredth. Or a thousandth. Or a ten-thousandth. Run the numbers, the maths is pretty basic. The Death Star is much smaller than a planet and mostly empty space. Your comparison to planets is absurd. Furthermore it is less robust. Massive internal explosions are going to wreck it. It's like the difference between flying a plane into a hillside vs. a building. You can't have this one. There's a long list of reasons presented to you why it doesn't make sense for hyperspace to be the weapon you portray it as in the Star Wars setting.

If your only evidence to support your claim that it isn't possible is that it hasn't been shown happening basically this should be over.

You are arguing in bad faith. I've presented a lot more argument than that and supported all of it.

I've given proof that such things can happen accidentally in both canon and legends, though admittedly we don't know the destructive force in canon. If you are claiming that the malfunction can't be duplicated intentionally then feel free to provide actual evidence backing your claim. And it not having been done before onscreen does not count.

I have seen no such proof of this in canon and the implications of it being possible would change much of what we do see. I have no further interest in arguing with you on this as it is obvious to me you are not arguing in good faith.

I told you where to watch it happen and you weren't interested in doing so.

Hell even in A New Hope Han talks about flying right through a star or bouncing too close to a supernova if the jump isn't plotted properly. How can one fly through a star if the gravity well physically forces you out of hyperspace?

What are people actually arguing here? That the alliance killing Palpatine with suicide tactics is possible or that it's plausible? I would argue the first but not the second.

From Wookiepedia:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperspace

"Even if a planet had its planetary shielding up at the time of a hyperspace collision, it could still have the potential to kill millions on a world such as Coruscant just due to the fallout."

The takeaway is that with a planetary shield up (which is totally plausible) killing Palpatine is far from a sure thing even with a hit.

Similarly:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Interdiction_field

So the possibility exists of pulling a ship out of hyperspace. I couldn't find information about how hard it is to pull this off.

Also the Coruscant article ( http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Coruscant ) indicates that Palpatine kept the planet on lockdown so defences like these were probably in place.

Finally (though I can't back this up with Star Wars evidence) I expect that the margin for error in hyperspace jumps is very large so that a 'hit' is far from certain.

All and all I think it's a low probability play.

I never did understand the logic behind claiming the Empire kept Coruscant's shields up all time honestly. Besides the massive energy waste and maintenance nightmare it sends a message to the population of the galaxy that the Empire's capital feels constantly threatened which clashes with Palpatine's attitude of nothing can harm me once the Jedi were defeated. One of the reasons the Empire lost at Endor was Palpatine not viewing the rebels as a real threat which is why he held the fleet back to let him use the superlaser. Yet he feels unsafe on his own capital apparently. The Palace maybe but the entire planet seems a bit much.

Well...

The Emperor felt safe at Endor because he was hiding behind a massive energy shield..

What are people actually arguing here? That the alliance killing Palpatine with suicide tactics is possible or that it's plausible? I would argue the first but not the second.

From Wookiepedia:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperspace

"Even if a planet had its planetary shielding up at the time of a hyperspace collision, it could still have the potential to kill millions on a world such as Coruscant just due to the fallout."

The takeaway is that with a planetary shield up (which is totally plausible) killing Palpatine is far from a sure thing even with a hit.

Additionally, it's worth noting that that bit of information about hyperspace is no longer canon. At this point, for all we know coming out of hyperspace inside or close to a star or black hole is no different than teleporting inside or flying conventionally into one: hazardous to your own health, but not to anyone elses.

Ahh teleporting inside a solid object usually results in an explosion in most sources I'm familiar with. Often a very large one proportional to te size of the object being teleported. Hell in that case you probably could wreck a Death Star by hypering a fighter into it. And a midsized or large capship would be a planet killer. That's before factoring the ship's power system into the festivities.

Also I'm confused about how a planetary shield would effect a ship passing through hyperspace. Do shields even have a mass shadow, much less enough of one to effect hyperspace while warships don't? Even Interdictors operate via a simulated mass shadow not a real one.

Again, can you please stick with either "gravity wells stops hyperspeed" or "it doesnt"? You cant jump from one side of the argument to the other.

They do not stop hyperspace travel unless the ship actually hits the mass shadow of whatever is generating the gravity well with destructive results.

What gravity wells do instead is trigger a safety system designed to prevent such collisions which causes the ship to drop out at safe distance from whatever is generating the gravity well.and prevents it from jumping near such an object.

What Interdictors do is project a field which fools the safeties into thinking there is an object with a mass shadow nearby

Ahh teleporting inside a solid object usually results in an explosion in most sources I'm familiar with.

Unless any of those sources are Star Wars canon, they're not really relevant to the discussion at hand.

Hell in that case you probably could wreck a Death Star by hypering a fighter into it

Why would the rebels have sent out 30 fighters to near certain death then? Why not just send out the one?

Lots of possibilities. The first three that come to mind

1: The rebels don't like ordering suicide missions

2: Modifying the hyperdrives to bypass the safeties would take time. How much time is unknown since every case we have actually seen the safeties off have been due to damage not done intentionally

3:They weren't desperate enough to consider it. This is the kind of thing only thought of when you have literally nothing to lose.

And while we have no idea exactly what amount of energy is released when a ship hyperspaces into a planet thee is absloutely no reason to believe it wouldn't be substantial.

Lots of possibilities. The first three that come to mind

1: The rebels don't like ordering suicide missions

2: Modifying the hyperdrives to bypass the safeties would take time. How much time is unknown since every case we have actually seen the safeties off have been due to damage not done intentionally

3:They weren't desperate enough to consider it. This is the kind of thing only thought of when you have literally nothing to lose.

And while we have no idea exactly what amount of energy is released when a ship hyperspaces into a planet thee is absloutely no reason to believe it wouldn't be substantial.

1. They were going up against the Death Star, that IS a suicide mission. Han even called it such. Why send 30 pilots to their deaths instead of just one? Or even just have a droid pilot it in.

2. It's not like the Death Star wasn't known to the Rebels. Why spend all this time and effort grabbing plans and hoping against hope to find a weakness when you can apparently just jailbreak a hyperdrive on a starfighter and take it out that way? And if it can only be done by accident, then it's not exactly viable as an assassination method, now is it?

3. They weren't desperate enough?! Their entire High Command staring down the Barrel of the Death Star's superlaser and they weren't desperate enough? Hell, according to you anyone who got their planet blown up instantly becomes a hardcore kamikaze with nothing to lose, surely they've got at least 1 Alderanian pilot on standby? Or even stuff Leia in one, apparently she has nothing to lose anymore, right? Or said droid, that would work too.

None of what you're saying makes a lick of sense.

And while we have no idea exactly what amount of energy is released when a ship hyperspaces into a planet thee is absloutely no reason to believe it wouldn't be substantial.

Just looking up quick physics to estimate: an H-bomb emits enough energy to move an Earth sized planet less than half a centimetre. I'd guess a hyperdrive explosion would be a couple of orders of magnitude more powerful but I'm not even sure if that would have a noticeable effect.

Honestly, are we sure (in canon) that ships actually travel at relativistic speed in the blue hyperspace tunnel? They call it "lightspeed," but then they also call what blasters fire "lasers" when they're clearly nothing of the sort.

Trying to apply real-world physics to extrapolate the ability of technology in the Star Wars universe is kind of an exercise in futility. it works whatever way the writers want it to work at any given moment, which is why the old EU was such a mess and why it got jettisoned so that it could be pieced back together into a cohesive and sensible whole.

Trying to apply real-world physics to extrapolate the ability of technology in the Star Wars universe is kind of an exercise in futility...

I'm aware of that but if someone is presented with in-universe evidence and says it doesn't make sense then real world physics is the only argument to be made.

True but we do know that Hyperspacing into stellar objects is a danger, see Jedi Crash where they almost fly through a star while in hyperspace.

We don't know the amount of damage inflicted on a planet by such a collision in but we have no proof that it would be significantly less then in Legends. And regarding the planetary shielding I would be curious bout what kind of ship was used for the damage estimates

What in-universe evidence is there to be presented? All in-universe evidence point AGAINST the ability to weaponize hyperspace travel.

We don't know the amount of damage inflicted on a planet by such a collision in but we have no proof that it would be significantly less then in Legends

There's also no proof it would be the same, or even close to the same, or any damage at all instead of the ship in question simple ceasing to exist.

If hyperspace could be used as a weapon the way you describe, it'd make the Death Star not only completely unnecessary (it's primary function of planetary destruction being easily fulfilled and much more cheaply) but also pants-on-head foolish because it'd be an easy target for just such a hyperspace attack.

Yet in all the movies, not only was hyperspace not utilized as a weapon, the possibility of such was never even mentioned.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The fact that this is a weapon that could only be used against planets, moons, and maybe, repeat maybe Death Stars, might have a lot to do with it never being mentioned. You need a target which has enough of a mass shadow to effect a ship in hyperspace. Most spacecraft and space stations apparently don't have such a shadow or Hyperspave nav would be even more complicated then it is. And remember Interdictors simulate the gravity well of such an object but do not have the actual mass shadow of one.

As for why the Empire built a Death Star rather then launching such attacks my best guess is they wanted a way to destroy worlds which couldn't be easily turned against them. The Empire starts hyperspacing ships into worlds and it is easy for any rebels to decide the only way to win is to hit back in kind and things get very ugly very quickly

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

In the real world.

In fictional worlds, the only things that exist are what the writers explicitly say exist. Anything else is speculation.

The fact that this is a weapon that could only be used against planets, moons, and maybe, repeat maybe Death Stars, might have a lot to do with it never being mentioned.

That would be like having a modern day war movies that never mentioned nukes, even as an off-hand comment to explain why they aren't being used. If a weapon this powerful and this accessible existed, it would have come up.

Actually, more likely the universe as seen in the movies would not exist because any psychopath with more technical know-how than moral compass and a starfighter could decide to erase an entire planet on a whim.

Think through the ramifications of what you're suggesting.

The possibility of using hyperspace as planet-destroying superweapon is extremely stupid in the face of weapons like the Death Star.

Why sould the Empire design a ludicrously powerful space station to achieve something that can be done by accident, by sacrificing something of much smaller cost?