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.

Of all the things I have read about SW lately (in a setting that has Space Wizards and Superweapons), this stands out as the most realistic and sensible thing I have come across; safety standards and legal liabilities. Makes me want to go out and buy a book on the CEC/Corporate Sector just so I can learn more.

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.

Of all the things I have read about SW lately (in a setting that has Space Wizards and Superweapons), this stands out as the most realistic and sensible thing I have come across; safety standards and legal liabilities. Makes me want to go out and buy a book on the CEC/Corporate Sector just so I can learn more.

You could totally take a law enforcement type character (maybe a Marshal) and make them a starship insurance claim adjuster. They'd work for CEC and investigate starship accident claims. It could lead to interesting adventures as the crew tries to get to the bottom of what happened.

I'm starting to kind of like the concept. You could even use your credentials to ward off Imperial inspectors asking why you're in an area, since a claim could happen anywhere.

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

It just occurred to me. Forget Death Stars and whatever the hell Starkiller was. Just take a cheap, disposable Capitol Ship - a corvette should do nicely. Crew it with nothing but droids, disable the safety interlocks and hyperdrive it into a planet. I've not crunched the numbers, but I'm pretty sure you'll get the same Planet Busting results from a four million metric ton chunk of metal slamming into Alderaan at the speed of light .

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

It just occurred to me. Forget Death Stars and whatever the hell Starkiller was. Just take a cheap, disposable Capitol Ship - a corvette should do nicely. Crew it with nothing but droids, disable the safety interlocks and hyperdrive it into a planet. I've not crunched the numbers, but I'm pretty sure you'll get the same Planet Busting results from a four million metric ton chunk of metal slamming into Alderaan at the speed of light .

In a hard sci-fi setting, absolutely. Star Wars is science fantasy/space opera, however, so it's perfectly possible for an Imperial -class Star Destroyer massing OMG-million tons to crash on a planetary surface without turning the planet into a ball of plasma.

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

It just occurred to me. Forget Death Stars and whatever the hell Starkiller was. Just take a cheap, disposable Capitol Ship - a corvette should do nicely. Crew it with nothing but droids, disable the safety interlocks and hyperdrive it into a planet. I've not crunched the numbers, but I'm pretty sure you'll get the same Planet Busting results from a four million metric ton chunk of metal slamming into Alderaan at the speed of light .

You would seem to be right.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/

And that's just a baseball going 90% the speed of light.

On the other hand, in Star Wars we don't just have vehicles accelerating to lightspeed and flying around. They are slipping into Hyperspace. Hyperspace is a kind of alternate dimension, presumably because craft can't travel that fast in our dimension. A craft traveling through Hyperspace has to account for stellar objects that project "mass shadows" into Hyperspace which is why astrogation is needed to plot a safe route. A ship that fails to do so risks destruction as it collided with that shadow.

But it's hitting a shadow in another dimension. It's not actually striking that stellar object in our dimension. So what would likely happen in your scenario is that the droids make panicked beeps, books, and squeals, the ship is obliterated, and nobody on the target planet would have any idea that anything happened.

One question though would be what happens to the ship afterward? Does the debris stay in Hyperspace, making that lane treacherous? Does it get flung out into real space at various points along the lane?

Maybe it's possible to put mines on a Hyperspace lane?

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

It just occurred to me. Forget Death Stars and whatever the hell Starkiller was. Just take a cheap, disposable Capitol Ship - a corvette should do nicely. Crew it with nothing but droids, disable the safety interlocks and hyperdrive it into a planet. I've not crunched the numbers, but I'm pretty sure you'll get the same Planet Busting results from a four million metric ton chunk of metal slamming into Alderaan at the speed of light .

In a hard sci-fi setting, absolutely. Star Wars is science fantasy/space opera, however, so it's perfectly possible for an Imperial -class Star Destroyer massing OMG-million tons to crash on a planetary surface without turning the planet into a ball of plasma.

1. A ship in hyperspace doesn't interact with objects in realspace: The Falcon didn't turn into a ball of fire when entering Starkiller's atmosphere.

2. When leaving, a ship's velocity isn't relativistic: See above.

1. A ship in hyperspace doesn't interact with objects in realspace: The Falcon didn't turn into a ball of fire when entering Starkiller's atmosphere.

Okay, he phrased it in a flippant offhand way, much like how someone saying "I could eat a horse" isn't actually able to eat an equine - but how do we reconcile Han nearly skipping off a planet with his line of flying through a star or bouncing off a supernova? It seems that has to be some kind of interaction between objects in hyperspace and said object in realspace.

1. A ship in hyperspace doesn't interact with objects in realspace: The Falcon didn't turn into a ball of fire when entering Starkiller's atmosphere.

Okay, he phrased it in a flippant offhand way, much like how someone saying "I could eat a horse" isn't actually able to eat an equine - but how do we reconcile Han nearly skipping off a planet with his line of flying through a star or bouncing off a supernova? It seems that has to be some kind of interaction between objects in hyperspace and said object in realspace.

The mass shadow in real space affects Hyperspace but not vice-versa. At least based on what's on Wookieepedia. If you think about it, if it's possible for a ship in Hyperspace to do something destructive to real space it would have happened by now, given the thousands of years that sentients have been traveling the lanes. But it doesn't seem to be a concern. Crashing into stuff from within Hyperspace, though, that is a concern and it's the reason why people stick to known routes and run careful calculations. And have so many safety measures into their ships.

Hyperspace could emulate the topology of realspace. So gravitational distortions of space by masses in realspace would be perceptible in hyperspace. Distortions of a certain degree could make travel through hyperspace impossible and force the vessel into realspace. Instantly she would have to cope with what she found there, e.g. supernova.

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?

Speed and routes. You need a hyperplane that runs in circles to do that. You can not stop in hyperspace and you are **** fast in hyperspace. If you scout enough you can for sure create such a hyperspace circle route, but you definitely need to map a new lane for that as standard lanes are not wide enough to fit a "hyperloop"

Getting back to the topic, iirc Fly Casual mentions that not all hyperplanes are simply uninterrupted, some points of interest might appear along the way which force some real space navigation from one jump point to the next. Nebulas are an example from the clone wars, asteroiden are an example given in FC, and speaking of asteroids: Those are mentioned as well as a common way to block hyperlanes by pirates, they just tractor in some large rocks into the lane and let the mass shadow do their magic, effectively destroying the lane until someone clears the lane up again.

In Rebels we have another case besides the interdictor cruiser mentioned: Even something as small as a herd of space wales will cast a big enough mass shadow to pull out or even destroy ships. Creatures like those are a constant danger for the lanes as they wander around in interstellar space and sometimes by pure chance cross an establish lane.

Hyperspace could emulate the topology of realspace. So gravitational distortions of space by masses in realspace would be perceptible in hyperspace. Distortions of a certain degree could make travel through hyperspace impossible and force the vessel into realspace. Instantly she would have to cope with what she found there, e.g. supernova.

Hera explains in Rebels that a mass shadow will deactive the hyperdrive because a collision with a mass in hyperspace would destroy a ship. It is basically a safety mechanism, the crazy (and dumb) thing in TFA was to deactivate the safety mechanism and risk a collision based on a timing which left no room for error. Someone might have done the math how much time they had before they would hit the planet in hyperspace, but even at lightspeed and an assumed 100km height for the shield it would be just 0.333 millisecond to hit the planet. Considering that you need some space to decelerate you can cut this in half and as activating this to early would destroy you, you need some safety against activating to early too, so you are roughly a time frame of 0.1 millisecond to come out of hyperdrive, no small feature to calculate your jump that precise, it means you need extremely precise and up to date maps as well … from a planet which just MOVED to his position.

This was done in a clone wars episode. In the first season or so Anakin routed a ship to jump into a moon.

Hyperspace could emulate the topology of realspace. So gravitational distortions of space by masses in realspace would be perceptible in hyperspace. Distortions of a certain degree could make travel through hyperspace impossible and force the vessel into realspace. Instantly she would have to cope with what she found there, e.g. supernova.

Hera explains in Rebels that a mass shadow will deactive the hyperdrive because a collision with a mass in hyperspace would destroy a ship. It is basically a safety mechanism, the crazy (and dumb) thing in TFA was to deactivate the safety mechanism and risk a collision based on a timing which left no room for error. Someone might have done the math how much time they had before they would hit the planet in hyperspace, but even at lightspeed and an assumed 100km height for the shield it would be just 0.333 millisecond to hit the planet. Considering that you need some space to decelerate you can cut this in half and as activating this to early would destroy you, you need some safety against activating to early too, so you are roughly a time frame of 0.1 millisecond to come out of hyperdrive, no small feature to calculate your jump that precise, it means you need extremely precise and up to date maps as well … from a planet which just MOVED to his position.

It still holds that an object in hyperspace cannot interact (collide) with objects in realspace with the relative speed it has.

Hera is a Pilot, possibly with a degree in engineering, but certainly no physicist, lecturing. So her description is, from her point of view, completely sufficient and practical for her purpose in following scenario:

Objects in hyperspace are only affected by spatial distortions in realspace, i.e. gravity. If these distortions become to strong, it will be forced into realspace to then immediately collide with the object generating the distortion. So, a safety device is installed in spaceships, that will actively expel the vessel before such an event occurs, with a conservative safety margin programmed into it.

And we have had a ship in the clone wars jump to hyperspace and collide with a moon.

It happened in this episode http://www.starwars.com/tv-shows/clone-wars/destroy-malevolence-episode-gallery
It was catestrophic for the moon.