After reading this ( http://www.iflscience.com/physics/time-dilation-star-wars-would-have-made-luke-younger-his-twin-leia ) article, I had many thoughts about modern space science and its impact on old school sci-fi like the original trilogy. Have you or your players considered to reference or employ Time Dilation effects? Assuming hyperspace jumping is faster-then-light travel, of course.

Personally I see hyperspace travel as taking advantage of the different distances in the alternative dimension that hyperdrives use, as such relativistic issues are not relevant. Effectively the drive punches a hole into another plane in which distances are smaller but still have equivalent points in space.

Time dialation isn't a factor in FTL travel in SW. As evidence of this, I submit the Death Star and Alderaan. The DS blew up Alderaan while Luke and company were en-route and Ben felt its destruction in hyperspace at the same time it occurred in realspace. Therefore, however one wants to rationalize it, time passes at the same rate within hyperspace as it does in realspace. The only difference is transit speed.

The author is wrong, taking Han's statement literally. In hyperspace they aren't travelling at "light speed" they are going far faster than that...it's almost like a Battlestar Galactica instant-jump because the distance is only relative to the plot.

Meanwhile, real-space ships don't approach light speed, and even if they did it would take years to get from one system to another.

So there is no time dilation, or nothing meaningful.

I did though once have a plot with a ship whose hyperdrive had malfunctioned while in hyperspace. They ended up ejected into real space while travelling at 99%+ of light speed...I didn't bother with the exact math, but some Ishi-tib were caught in the ship, and they'd been travelling helpless for 2000 years (which still took them through a very small slice of the galaxy), but for them it was only a few weeks. These Ishi-tib were disappointed that their planet had fallen to the Separatists, and decided to go back and rally the resistance (changing the canon).

Was a fun adventure

I never have or would. Honestly I don't even bother with terribly much ship combat, space travel is more or less a magic carpet ride from point to point typically. That and Star Wars more or less shreds physics and actual science so I don't feel much need for science heavy stories.

It's pretty weird XD

I believe that Hyperspace it's a mixture between lightspeed and a wormhole XD

No.

Star Wars universe doesn't give a **** about astronomy and physics on Earth. Hyperspace is a tool to facilitate plot advancement in a huge galaxy. Even at the Falcon's .5 past lightspeed (So 1.5c?) things would develop so slowly that it would be impossible to have a galaxy wide government. The entire story would crumble if you started caring about this stuff.

I mean, Naboo is 34k light years for the Core. So if they send word to the galactic senate about the blockade in PM, it would take something like 68k years for Qui Gon and Obi Wan to show up to negotiate 34k for the message to get there, then another 34k to get back. And that assumes the ship is moving at lightspeed. We know it can't be that much past it, because otherwise the Falcon at 1.5c wouldn't be terribly impressive. Even if you make it easy and let the message be instantaneous, the Jedi are still taking 34k years to get there by which time everyone involved is ancient history.

All that to say, if you are worrying about hyperspace and relativity, you shouldn't be.

Absolutelly right, SW have plot tech, speed, powers... XD

The linked article is based on the flawed assumption that starships in Star Wars are performing real-space movement at nearly the speed of light. That can't be true for several reasons already pointed out by earlier posters.

Furthermore, Special Relativity can't be applied to objects travelling faster than c: It's main conclusion is just that this kind of movement is impossible within space-time. So, no equation no dilation.

There is technology built into hyperdrives that keeps this from being a thing, aka plot-tech.

The Falcon can change the distance between objects (a parsec is a unit of distance not time)... Don't forget the energy to get a spaceship to go the speed of light is more than all the energy in our entire universe. Science breaks Star Wars and Star Wars breaks Science, it's cool, it's make believe, heck, how does science explain The Force and all the breaking of conservation of energy stuff. Answer is it doesn't have to.

The Falcon can change the distance between objects (a parsec is a unit of distance not time)... Don't forget the energy to get a spaceship to go the speed of light is more than all the energy in our entire universe. Science breaks Star Wars and Star Wars breaks Science, it's cool, it's make believe, heck, how does science explain The Force and all the breaking of conservation of energy stuff. Answer is it doesn't have to.

Not quite, you just need some "exotic matter":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

Basically, the ship is encased in a "bubble" of negative density, and the bubble goes faster than light, so the matter in the bubble is technically not violating any physical laws. And according to the latest speculations, you'd need only 700kg of fuel.

But first we need some "exotic matter"...

No.

Star Wars universe doesn't give a **** about astronomy and physics on Earth. Hyperspace is a tool to facilitate plot advancement in a huge galaxy. Even at the Falcon's .5 past lightspeed (So 1.5c?) things would develop so slowly that it would be impossible to have a galaxy wide government. The entire story would crumble if you started caring about this stuff.

I always believed that ".5 past lightspeed" was a reference to the capabilities of his hyperdrive... That to reach hyperspace, you need to break the lightspeed barrier, that's why you see the Falcon jumping to hyperspace, getting a boost of speed (R2 getting wacked behind because of the acceleration) and once they "reached" the speed of light, the hyperdrive opened a "portal" to hyperspace where time was equal to normal space but distances cut short.... so you could move "faster" then the speed of light without breaking the laws of physics....

As for the parsecs used by Han talking about the Kessel run... if I'm not mistaking, the Kessel run passes near blackholes and other spacial distrubances... so making it in less then 3 parsecs could just mean that he was able to skim the edges of those blackholes and use the shortest route to navigate the Kessel run, without having to make detours to go safely around some blackholes...

The Alcubierre drive is mostly the same thing has the Star Trek warp bubble.... that it's not the ship that his moving, but the space around it, meaning that the ship isn't moving, so it's not going faster then the speed of light, but that space itself is moving and bringing along the ship with it.... Hyperdrives in Star Wars work more like wormholes, that they punch a hole trought realspace and sends you into an alternate dimension where distances are way shorter...

Hope it helps.

As for the parsecs used by Han talking about the Kessel run... if I'm not mistaking, the Kessel run passes near blackholes and other spacial distrubances... so making it in less then 3 parsecs could just mean that he was able to skim the edges of those blackholes and use the shortest route to navigate the Kessel run, without having to make detours to go safely around some blackholes...

Well Han claims to have made the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs. I'm not sure where you got 3, it's ludicrous to believe any ship could do the entire Run in 3 parsecs. Maybe Spaceball 1 could do it?

But joking aside, you're spot on for why Han is using parsecs to describe how fast he made the run. In the past, I've compared hyperspace travel to Mario Kart. You have the established track, but if you've got a mushroom you can cut a corner, boost it, and get to the finish line quicker. The Falcon just has a permanent mushroom. I'm not saying the Chewie is growing shrooms in the Falcon's cargo hold, but they did toss their cargo real quick when the law showed up asking questions....

So it's a little suspicious to me is all I'm saying.

IMO, hyperspace is just that — hyper space. It is beyond normal space, and the laws of physics that apply in normal space don’t necessarily apply in hyperspace.

So, the time dilation problem doesn’t exist in hyperspace travel, as it would if you were in normal space and traveling at relativistic velocities.

But beyond that, it’s all a fiction anyway, so you should do whatever makes sense for your game and that you feel fits in best with the Star Wars universe.

I liked the way it was Described in one of the rogue Squadron books..

Part of calculating a Hyperspace Jump Includes How many "Jumps" one needs to actually make to complete the trip.

The Idea is that A Jump is relatively a Straight Line From Point "A" to Point "B". Hyperspace Travel Does not Account for turning the ship as you would a Car, plane, or Spaceship in Normal space or speeds. (Your moving to fast to turn accurately or Hyperspace travel jsut doesn't allow for it.) But Large Gravitation bodies can have an Impact on your "Arc" of travel... So depending on how Clear of a Line you have between Point "A" and Point "B"....

A single Hyperspace Jump Might Include No stops... But the Further the Distance is between Point "A" and Point "B", the More Gravitation Bodies get in the way and So you have to Temporarily drop out of Hyperspace,

Your ship Makes adjustments for Directional Angle and then Jumps again. A Pilot or astronavigational Computer has to Plot a Course of Smaller Jumps Designed to Bring you out of Hyperspace far enough from a Large gravitational Shadow so that you can Realign your ship and make the next Jump towards your destination without that Gravitation Body Impacting your direction of travel and throwing you Off.

This is Part of Why The Trips between two destination points can vary, as Planetary and even Solar system/Sun Rotations can Shift exactly Where the Gravitational Forces that Impact Hyperspace Travel are in relation to your Destination. This is Why Astrogation Navigation is Complex and often requires a Nav-computer to process quickly as most Sentient minds can not compute all the variables very quickly, Since you would have to look up the current projected location of each Gravitational Shadow within the course of your travel. Even with Nav-Computers, it can take a Few minutes to calculate the next Jump.

So you should think of Hyperspace Travel as a series of Jumps where you make a series of Shorter jumps, Jump stop Turn Jump Stop Turn.

Han Indicates that he Did the Kessel Run in under 12 Parsecs Because he was Able to Calculate a series of Jumps through the Black Hole cluster that Kept the Number of Jumps, and this the time it took, to the Fastest and shortest Means Possible...

A Risky proposition since he was Cutting coners Close to Black Holes... a Miscalculation and a Black Hole ( Huge gravitational Shadows) Would have not only Pulled him out of Hyperspace, But also would have Pulled him in and Bye bye Han Solo.

The Indication of Doing it in the short distance of Under 12 parsec was Not only an Indication of His Astrogation Navigational Skill, But also an Indication of How big his Balls were for the risk he took.

The other problem with the parsec, it's based on Earth, and the Star Wars Galaxy is "a long time ago I a galaxy far far away"... I just turn off science when I think about Star Wars, it's easier.

The only time I have ever done this was when The Plot Demanded it. My Rebellion Era players were nearly run over by a old Clone Wars era battleship that had the snausages kicked out of it that was jumping in and out of hyperspace violently. There was a lull in the jumps long enough for them to board and shut down the hyperdrive systems.

Turns out, it was a ship full of pre-order 66 clonetroopers fighting a whole bunch of Confederation droids when an explosion in the engine room set the FTL drive in motion, but not the hyperdrive motivator. So the half an hour fight onboard was really about 25 years to the rest of the world.

The problem was, of course, what to do with a ship full of Not Yet Hostile clonetroopers that would turn so when making contact with the Empire. The couple of Jedi on-board were also non-too-happy with the state of the universe. It was quite the culture shock for them.

I've also always entertained the idea of what would happen if our KotOR era characters wound up in and around the Modern era - but never enough to upset the current game doing so. (Maybe as a one-off "It was all a dream" game.)

As for the parsecs used by Han talking about the Kessel run... if I'm not mistaking, the Kessel run passes near blackholes and other spacial distrubances... so making it in less then 3 parsecs could just mean that he was able to skim the edges of those blackholes and use the shortest route to navigate the Kessel run, without having to make detours to go safely around some blackholes.

Or Solo could have been bigging himself up to impress a senile old man and a backwater rube by throwing out important sounding nonsense that the Old Man and the Rube wouldnt catch on to.

The other problem with the parsec, it's based on Earth, and the Star Wars Galaxy is "a long time ago I a galaxy far far away"... I just turn off science when I think about Star Wars, it's easier.

I always chalked it up to the Call a Rabbit a Smerp translation convention. Concepts like Hell or Parsects or the like probably have their own Star Wars names, but in order to understand what the hell is going on, there needs to be some linguist overlap between English and Wars-speak.

The only time I have ever done this was when The Plot Demanded it. My Rebellion Era players were nearly run over by a old Clone Wars era battleship that had the snausages kicked out of it that was jumping in and out of hyperspace violently. There was a lull in the jumps long enough for them to board and shut down the hyperdrive systems.

Turns out, it was a ship full of pre-order 66 clonetroopers fighting a whole bunch of Confederation droids when an explosion in the engine room set the FTL drive in motion, but not the hyperdrive motivator. So the half an hour fight onboard was really about 25 years to the rest of the world.

The problem was, of course, what to do with a ship full of Not Yet Hostile clonetroopers that would turn so when making contact with the Empire. The couple of Jedi on-board were also non-too-happy with the state of the universe. It was quite the culture shock for them.

I've also always entertained the idea of what would happen if our KotOR era characters wound up in and around the Modern era - but never enough to upset the current game doing so. (Maybe as a one-off "It was all a dream" game.)

I've had a similar thought for a campaign involving a Clone Wars battle near the event horizon of a black hole, ala Andromeda. Lots of very interesting stories along that timeline.

I would use it frequently myself... As a jump transition point is a great place for Pirates to ambush Ships. Especially ships On Jump Routes that are used to avoid "Imperial entanglements".

Or to even have an Imperial Entanglement show up. I.e. the imperials caught wind of one of the smuggler routes being used and put out a Ship in that sector watching for Ships to stop and search.

Do the smugglers Dump their Cargo? Or try and out fly the Imperials.

Also situations might arise where they encounter a Disabled ship that was itself the victim of a Pirate raid.....

Lots of Opportunities of Small "adventures" to be had along Jump routes.

Oh, just remembered an anime from ages and ages ago: Gunbuster, Aim for the Top, a Giant Robot series from Studio Gainax that deals with time dilation in a really cool way (and with one hell of a payoff at the end). I don't know if the DVDs are still in print, but it's worth your three hours on youtube to watch all 6 episodes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VrDl1RRoaw

Other excellent fiction related to time dilation and relativistic speeds is The Forever War. Classic military sci-fi.

After reading this ( http://www.iflscience.com/physics/time-dilation-star-wars-would-have-made-luke-younger-his-twin-leia ) article, I had many thoughts about modern space science and its impact on old school sci-fi like the original trilogy. Have you or your players considered to reference or employ Time Dilation effects? Assuming hyperspace jumping is faster-then-light travel, of course.

Nah

Much prefer staying true to the Fiction part of Sci-Fi.

Suprising no one checked wookiepedia:

To prevent the relativistic passing of time while in hyperspace, starships used stasis fields attuned to hyperdrive levels to keep organic onboard crews or cargoes "in time" with the standard galactic dimension.