And yes, I agree that it's absurd. The Death Star is basically a giant spherical capital ship, so having it fly around from place to place nuking planets is plausible (if you can accept that things like hyperspace and artificial gravity and ray shields and so on are things that exist).

Or the Force. *cough*

Star Wars isn't science-fiction. Pulling sufficient energy to dim a star through a planet would instantly vaporize the planet. But if this is what a film presents, it's not unreasonable to assume that laws-of-physics-defying fantasy technology exists in-universe to move a planet around.

And yes, I agree that it's absurd. The Death Star is basically a giant spherical capital ship, so having it fly around from place to place nuking planets is plausible (if you can accept that things like hyperspace and artificial gravity and ray shields and so on are things that exist).

Or the Force. *cough*

Star Wars isn't science-fiction. Pulling sufficient energy to dim a star through a planet would instantly vaporize the planet. But if this is what a film presents, it's not unreasonable to assume that laws-of-physics-defying fantasy technology exists in-universe to move a planet around.

You have a good point. We're already suspending disbelief quite a bit when the base is sucking up stars, using that power to blow up other planets, and flying itself around in the process. It's not like we have to suspend that much more, relatively speaking, to avoid or minimize seismic events. Maybe they're including some kind of dampener under the crust to counteract the effect. The dampener might be emitting a counter vibration or might just involve some dampening shell or gel surrounding the propulsion system.

Force fields. It's all force fields. Even in Star Trek .

Force fields and tachyons!

According to wookiepedia, Starkiller base was made from "mobile ice planet located in the Unknown Regions". I have no idea what mobile planet means.

While I realize that science and Star Wars very seldomly have anything to do with each other, aren't all planets mobile? Just with very predictable trajectories.

That's true, actually (AFAIK) all objects in universe are mobile, it just depends on what you are comparing it to and in what time scale. Even our star, the sun, moves around milky way, and milky way moves around known universe. Slowly, but still moves. Reason why I didn't think about that is that logically there is no reason to say planet is mobile if it is travelling in its orbit. I cannot think a scenario where planet would be actually immobile, relative to it's system. So, logically (IMO) saying planet is mobile either means it's moving outside of it's normal trajectory, or it's totally meaningless and redundant phrase. If I remember correctly real life scientists have found few mobile planets, i.e. planets which are not part of any star system, but travel in space between stars.

Sorry, my science nerd woke up.

According to wookiepedia, Starkiller base was made from "mobile ice planet located in the Unknown Regions". I have no idea what mobile planet means.

While I realize that science and Star Wars very seldomly have anything to do with each other, aren't all planets mobile? Just with very predictable trajectories.

That's true, actually (AFAIK) all objects in universe are mobile, it just depends on what you are comparing it to and in what time scale. Even our star, the sun, moves around milky way, and milky way moves around known universe. Slowly, but still moves. Reason why I didn't think about that is that logically there is no reason to say planet is mobile if it is travelling in its orbit. I cannot think a scenario where planet would be actually immobile, relative to it's system. So, logically (IMO) saying planet is mobile either means it's moving outside of it's normal trajectory, or it's totally meaningless and redundant phrase. If I remember correctly real life scientists have found few mobile planets, i.e. planets which are not part of any star system, but travel in space between stars.

Sorry, my science nerd woke up.

The term for those types of planets is rogue planets. But yes, "mobile" planet in this context refers to planets which are capable of controlled movement beyond from system to system or otherwise out of their standard orbits via some form of propulsion system. Another example would (formerly) be the planets for the Correlian system, which were moved into the system via similar propulsion technology. The only other "real" examples of such planets exist outside of the SW franchise, those being Cybertron and Unicron from Transformers .

It's a good thing they blew up Starkiller Base before it transformed into a giant robot, then they'd REALLY have a hard time.

It's a good thing they blew up Starkiller Base before it transformed into a giant robot, then they'd REALLY have a hard time.

ROFLMAO!!!!!

Making cannons? You accusing FFG of having a weapons factory?

Sorry, I'll get my coat (at least I didn't make the RPG joke I had lined up).

Making cannons? You accusing FFG of having a weapons factory?

Sorry, I'll get my coat (at least I didn't make the RPG joke I had lined up).

But that would have been a blast!

Making cannons? You accusing FFG of having a weapons factory?

Sorry, I'll get my coat (at least I didn't make the RPG joke I had lined up).

But that would have been a blast!

Wahey! I see what you did there!

There is no reason that they would need a force field to keep the atmosphere intact (Other than the magnetosphere of the planet, which is sort of a force field I guess?)

Our own planet is a ball hurling through space at high speed and so far, it hasn't lost its atmosphere. Atmosphere doesn't cool off quickly because vacuum is a terrible conductor of heat, even worse than air. The ground keeps radiating heat into the atmosphere and the atmosphere keeps losing some heat to the vacuum, but less than people think. You don't flash-freeze once exposed to vacuum. It takes a while. (That's why you get those cyanide capsules...)

Consequently, even once there is no star left in the system, the atmosphere will retain its heat for quite a while, no force field necessary. That's exactly what happens at night: The side of the planet that isn't directed towards the sun cools off slowly, but it takes hours for temperatures to drop more than a few centigrade.

There is no reason that they would need a force field to keep the atmosphere intact (Other than the magnetosphere of the planet, which is sort of a force field I guess?)

Our own planet is a ball hurling through space at high speed and so far, it hasn't lost its atmosphere. Atmosphere doesn't cool off quickly because vacuum is a terrible conductor of heat, even worse than air. The ground keeps radiating heat into the atmosphere and the atmosphere keeps losing some heat to the vacuum, but less than people think. You don't flash-freeze once exposed to vacuum. It takes a while. (That's why you get those cyanide capsules...)

Consequently, even once there is no star left in the system, the atmosphere will retain its heat for quite a while, no force field necessary. That's exactly what happens at night: The side of the planet that isn't directed towards the sun cools off slowly, but it takes hours for temperatures to drop more than a few centigrade.

Short term I agree, long term I disagree. After all, temperatures in sahara desert can vary even from 37.5 to −0.5 °C (100 to 31 °F) in same day (AFAIK, that is highest daily difference). And in my home town (Jyväskylä, Finland) right now 10 degree fluctuation between day and night is normal (length of the day is 15h 25 min, so night is 8:35 (about third of a day)).

Also, following article says: "[if sun would disappear] Within days the world would be a hundred or so degrees below freezing, and within weeks it’d be just 50 or so degrees above absolute zero. The atmosphere itself would also freeze and fall to Earth, leaving us exposed to the harsh radiation travelling through space.", but you have to check its credibility yourself, I'm not qualified or knowledgeable enough to comment about validity of that article.

https://www.spaceanswers.com/solar-system/what-would-happen-if-the-sun-disappeared/

Anyway, I think that in long term, life in earth would die if sun would disappear. Orbited star is quite a important to life in planet. And if I understood correctly, the subject was related to Starkiller base having trees on it's surface. Which also need a sun for photosynthesis. (Obviously assuming earth like basic biology.)

But, back to Starkiller base and force field. Even if base wouldn't need force field to support trees (being at proper orbit), wouldn't it need some kind of force field when it travels to new star through hyperspace (if it's capable of hyperspace travel). I may be wrong, but I have understood that in hyperspace travel it's better not be outside your ship. And all those trees etc. might not survive the hyperspace trip. Ok, we never saw the base traveling in hyperspace, or don't even know if it is capable of such feat. But a planet sized weapon which destroyes it's own sun and through it its own capability of supporting life at its surface is kind of silly

Anyway, I personally don't have problem with possible errors in physics or biology, when they aren't too outrageous and I can ignore them with suspence of disbelief. If they are too large, or more importantly broke fiction's own logic, then I have problem with them. Sometimes it just nice to talk about inconsistencies or errors.

Please, If I'm totally wrong, then point me to better sources about this matter. Or ignore me, after all I definitely proved nothing.

The planet/atmosphere itself could be "recharged" at each system it travels to if they don't immediately deplete the star. Hyperspace travel is quick (days, hours, even minutes). So, when the atmosphere starts to get to a critical point, ensure you stop at a nearby system, maneuver within an appropriate distance of it's star, and allow time for the atmosphere to heat back up a bit. No time to wait you gotta suck that star dry right now!? As you draw in the power of the star some of this heat may be transferred to the atmosphere instead of the super weapon.

The article doesn't contradict what I've written, it starts describing the effects of the disappeared sun after "a couple of days." What sturn said, hyperdrive is fast (that much we know) and it only needs to be as fast as one night. So as long as you don't plot courses longer than approximately 12 hours, you won't be in trouble, climate-wise.

Whether the atmosphere (or trees) are affected from exposure to hyperspace differently than they are to vacuum, I can't say. We've - so far - never seen anything affected by hyperspace in the movies, whether it's astromech droids or ships. So who knows.

The article doesn't contradict what I've written, it starts describing the effects of the disappeared sun after "a couple of days." What sturn said, hyperdrive is fast (that much we know) and it only needs to be as fast as one night. So as long as you don't plot courses longer than approximately 12 hours, you won't be in trouble, climate-wise.

Whether the atmosphere (or trees) are affected from exposure to hyperspace differently than they are to vacuum, I can't say. We've - so far - never seen anything affected by hyperspace in the movies, whether it's astromech droids or ships. So who knows.

Yeah. I think somewhere is a mention that being outside of ships hull is extremely dangerous in hyperspace, even if using vacuum suit. But that may be in some non FFG material, or even in podcast or something. Personally, I'd make up something nasty for a PC being without protection of hull or force shield in hyperspace. Also, a force shield would remove the 12h (or something similar) time limit, between sun.

By the, I'm sorry my previous post was a bit confrontational. I didn't intent it that way, but now when I read what I wrote, it came out wrong.

From the research I did, it's speculated that it would take many days (not just a few) before things became lethal on Earth if we didn't have our sun.

Just doing a random Google search, the first few sites I could find state that the average global temperature would drop to 0º F in about a week. Which would be awful, of course, but not fatal; not any worse than a rough winter. By that point a lot of plant life would be in trouble as they would from a sudden frost, but other than that life on the surface would be okay.

It would take a few weeks before the surface of the planet became too cold for humans to live there. If people went underground, the heat coming from the planet's core could potentially be enough to allow them to survive indefinitely if they had a food source that didn't need sunlight and made other adaptations.

Also note that all of the water on the surface would freeze at the top-most layer, but ice is a great insulator (just look at how well igloos work) and the water deeper down would stay liquid for a long time (hundreds of thousands of years in the oceans).

In any event, there's no reason why leaving the proximity of a star would be fatally catastrophic to a planet as long as it didn't take more than a week or so to make the journey to another star. Especially given the level of technology that the First Order possesses. My biggest concern is what effect having such large engines would have on the planet. They are putting out such immense amounts of energy to be able to propel the planet. That's what I'm trying to get my head around. I get that the base is protected from the planet-killing weapon itself with the force field around the planet. But the engines, if nothing else, would probably shake the planet immensely.

ETA: Here are a few of the sources I found...

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-07/if-sun-went-out-how-long-could-life-earth-survive

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/what-if-the-sun-disappeared-earth-video_n_2999693.html

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/39-our-solar-system/the-earth/other-catastrophes/61-how-long-could-life-on-earth-survive-if-the-sun-stopped-shining-beginner

I trust those sources more than "Astro Jonny" at "Space Answers" who seems way off from what the above sources predict. For one thing, Jonny claims that within weeks the planet would be only 50 degrees above absolute zero. The other sources say that would take millions of years. That's a bit of a gap.

I'm going on a limb here and suggest that Starkiller base doesn't have subspace engines, only a hyperdrive.

I'm going on a limb here and suggest that Starkiller base doesn't have subspace engines, only a hyperdrive.

I disagree, somehow the planet must get out of the star gravity well for the hyperdrive to engage. But i think that the subspace engine are used on for a very short time to just deviate the planet from orbit.

I'm going on a limb here and suggest that Starkiller base doesn't have subspace engines, only a hyperdrive.

I disagree, somehow the planet must get out of the star gravity well for the hyperdrive to engage. But i think that the subspace engine are used on for a very short time to just deviate the planet from orbit.

In Star Wars you don't need to get out of the gravity well of the entire star system, just a safe jump distance from any gravity object. We see ships in the movies that jump or try to jump to hyperspace only a short distance from a planet, so they haven't escaped the entire star system's gravity pull.

But, this is interesting when you consider realworld effects of gravity on large objects. The larger two objects are, the more gravity pull there is between them. When your starship becomes a planet, it could become conceivable that such a large mass does indeed have to escape the gravity of the entire star system to jump.

Star Wars without Lucas is non canon. What difference does it make? The story has been told of the rise, fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker. The rest is just playing around in his creation

Star Wars without Lucas is non canon. What difference does it make? The story has been told of the rise, fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker. The rest is just playing around in his creation

That's not how intellectual property works.