Is there any Cannon (or legend) references of the ability to pull a spacecraft out of hyperspace?

ISB chasing the PCs and pull them from Hyperspace?

Rebels has shown a few new "tricks" for hyperspace. Being able to detach the Ghost and drop into real space. Clone Wars had multiple star fighters together traveling in Hyperspace. I dont recall anything that has shown the ability of an entity to pull someone out of hyperspace.

Lets say there is an Imperial blockade of some system...can the Imps pull any starships out of hyperspace that pass through that area and then tracker beam them into their landing bay?

Not sure of Canon'ness, but : http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Interdictor-class_Star_Destroyer

Yep, there was an Interdictor seen in "Star Wars: Rebels"

http://starwarsrebels.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Interdictor

Good catch, I'd forgotten that episode.

The Interdictor Class is also in Fly Casual, so, while doesn't make it technically canon it's certainly available to use.

I'm pretty sure there's one in the New Dawn book as well, which I believe is Canon.

Perfect! Thank you!

In Fly Casual (p. 60) it talks about that exact thing of using an SFS G7-X Gravity Well Projector to pull ships from Hyperspace by creating a gravity well bubble...and/or using it to prevent ships (out to extreme range!) of jumping into Hyperspace.

I believe the explanation for interdictors and how they work is that starships have a sensor that can detect gravity wells and other stellar objects. If it detects that a starship in hyperspace is approaching too close to such an object, it immediately drops the ship into realspace. The "gravity well projectors" on interdictors produce a false gravity well or mass shadow, which trips sensors on any incoming ships. The Empire positions their interdictors along major hyperlanes and in star systems to catch anything passing by for inspection or ambush. Also, hyperdrive systems and the aforementioned sensor won't activate until a ship moves far enough a way from a planet/gravity well, so interdictors prevent any ships from immediately making a run for it.

But, as shown in Episode VII, the pilot can manually bypass the sensor to prevent the ship from dropping out even in the presence of a gravity well. This is highly dangerous (of course), and I image it's not something that can be easily done. It likely requires modifying the hyperdrive directly, and is not something you can put on a toggle switch in the dash, otherwise every Rebel agent and smuggler would do so.

I believe the explanation for interdictors and how they work is that starships have a sensor that can detect gravity wells and other stellar objects. If it detects that a starship in hyperspace is approaching too close to such an object, it immediately drops the ship into realspace. The "gravity well projectors" on interdictors produce a false gravity well or mass shadow, which trips sensors on any incoming ships. The Empire positions their interdictors along major hyperlanes and in star systems to catch anything passing by for inspection or ambush. Also, hyperdrive systems and the aforementioned sensor won't activate until a ship moves far enough a way from a planet/gravity well, so interdictors prevent any ships from immediately making a run for it.

But, as shown in Episode VII, the pilot can manually bypass the sensor to prevent the ship from dropping out even in the presence of a gravity well. This is highly dangerous (of course), and I image it's not something that can be easily done. It likely requires modifying the hyperdrive directly, and is not something you can put on a toggle switch in the dash, otherwise every Rebel agent and smuggler would do so.

Unless it is that easy to override, but 99.999999% of those who hit the switch also hit the planet.

Yeah, that would indeed put a damper on people's incentive to attempt it...

Yeah, I don’t think it’s that easy to over-ride. You might not have to be the best Engineer in the Galaxy to be able to jury-rig an over-ride function, but it definitely wouldn’t be a standard thing.

And even if you did have an over-ride function, you would probably have to be the best Pilot in the Galaxy in order to be able to use it without destroying your ship and doing Very Grave Harm to whatever might be casting that mass shadow.

All IMO, of course. YMMV, etc….

Basically, to make it work like Han did in ep. VII (seriously, one of the scenes I disliked the most from that film...), I would say you need to have very accurate astrogational charts to know exactly where the planet is going to be when you show up and to know how hyperspace is going to "wave" as your passing through it so you can know your exact speed, and then you'll need a very good computer to drop you out at the exact right time (doing it by hand is suicide), and then an amazing pilot who can react to whatever just jumped into your viewport with extreme precision.

So, yeah...Worth attempting if you're, for example, assaulting a mega-superweapon and need to get through it's shields quick and stealthily or trillions are going to die, but most people aren't going to want to risk it...

I figure it's a safety standards and liability issue. If companies like CEC put every precaution into the sensor, then they can't be liable if some idiot compromises it. But if it can be compromised as easily as an off switch in the cockpit, and then a bunch ship captains kill themselves by playing with it, that's lawsuits and a degree of bad press, even if it's not strictly the fault of the company. If the company can reasonably say they put their best safety features into it, and the owner compromised it on their own by digging into the hyperdrive and/or navicomputer, well, condolences but it's we're not liable.

Of course, it's kind of hard to know for certain when a ship is pulverized by a planet, but whatever.

Also, and I know this might be a smidge of a reach, remember that in EP VII and in Clone Wars we see starships drop out of hyperspace into an atmo, but both times it's either not intentional, or just a pointed out as being a dangerous/stupid idea.

So it's possible the sensor (being built to cut it kinda close so as not to drop out of hyperspace every time the ship gets within a lightyear of an uncharted asteroid) is built to bring the ship out of hyperspace pretty close to a hazard anyway. Basically the manufacturer assumes that 99% of emergency cut-offs will activate in proximity to a relatively small realspace object (like a comet or large asteroid) and bring you out with ample room to avoid it even if the pilot isn't manning the stick at the moment the ship enters realspace, and not a planet that you can't just steer around because only an idiot would program a hyperspace jump on a direct intercept with the planet he's flying to, thus requiring the cutoff to only make a planetary collision "survivable." Further supporting is the fact that we see pilots make the jump and then stroll away and go play with the crew and passengers. If actual collisions were a serious risk it would be pretty simple policy to have someone on the stick the whole time no matter what.

Put simple: Maybe Han did some above average Astrogation plotting a direct intercept with Starkiller and used the emergency cutoff to time his reversion to realspace but didn't need to override it because the emergency cutoff would have put him in roughly the same spot anyway, but with less control and likelihood of the Falcon being space worthy after.

The conversation, at my table, might proceed as follows:

PC: "Can I actually override the mass detection emergency hyperdrive shutdown?"

GM: YES AND, as incidently it is hardwired into the hyperdrive motivator, that will be an impossible Computers check, if you please. Oh, and Astrogation checks will become very, very challenging afterwards, of course. Would you like to try it right now?"

If a fleet of ships jump together to the same destination, and having the same hyperdrive multiplier, can people look out the windows and see the other ships flying with them through hyperspace?

According to rebels yes. And TFA also shows you can wait to exit. And you can communicate into and out of hyperspace. Per both Rebels and TFA

According to rebels yes. And TFA also shows you can wait to exit. And you can communicate into and out of hyperspace. Per both Rebels and TFA

To that point, hyperspace was effectively the dimensional shift one experiences when moving at relativistic speeds greater than the speed of light.

Seeing a neighboring ship going roughly the same speed? Fine. Communications? Tricky, but FTL freighters are something I can buy into, so FTL data packets and radio signals are fine.

But sitting motionless AT BEYOND LIGHT SPEED is where I draw my effing line in the sand.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad movie, but that was the scene that popped the dam.

The Clone Wars cartoon also showed ships traveling hyperspace together.

According to rebels yes. And TFA also shows you can wait to exit. And you can communicate into and out of hyperspace. Per both Rebels and TFA

To that point, hyperspace was effectively the dimensional shift one experiences when moving at relativistic speeds greater than the speed of light.

Seeing a neighboring ship going roughly the same speed? Fine. Communications? Tricky, but FTL freighters are something I can buy into, so FTL data packets and radio signals are fine.

But sitting motionless AT BEYOND LIGHT SPEED is where I draw my effing line in the sand.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad movie, but that was the scene that popped the dam.

Dont look at it as sitting motionless. We already know you can change corse in hyperspace. So why couldnt someone do circles waiting for the go command. We do it now at airports. They will stack planes at a beacon and those planes will do orbits till their turn. Why couldnt ships do the same in hyperspace?

According to rebels yes. And TFA also shows you can wait to exit. And you can communicate into and out of hyperspace. Per both Rebels and TFA

To that point, hyperspace was effectively the dimensional shift one experiences when moving at relativistic speeds greater than the speed of light.

Seeing a neighboring ship going roughly the same speed? Fine. Communications? Tricky, but FTL freighters are something I can buy into, so FTL data packets and radio signals are fine.

But sitting motionless AT BEYOND LIGHT SPEED is where I draw my effing line in the sand.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad movie, but that was the scene that popped the dam.

Dont look at it as sitting motionless. We already know you can change corse in hyperspace. So why couldnt someone do circles waiting for the go command. We do it now at airports. They will stack planes at a beacon and those planes will do orbits till their turn. Why couldnt ships do the same in hyperspace?

You should check out that scene again. They're just... sitting there. Waiting.

In a swirling maelstrom. Tell me do you see any reference point that is in a fixed position to judge that by? I didnt.

Just watched it again. Nothing about the scene said sitting still. Looked like all hyperspace they look like they are booking it.

There's an interdictor in the book Tarkin, too. The technology was apparently experimental at the time the novel takes place in and, well, it didn't go so well!

There's an interdictor in the book Tarkin, too. The technology was apparently experimental at the time the novel takes place in and, well, it didn't go so well!

And Tarkin did not care about the damage he caused..