Looking to find more info on the Cannons, Wookiepedia says they are referenced in Fly Casual, I have looked through that book and come up blank. Anyone remember seeing any info on The Hyperspace Cannons in Fly Casual?

That must be a mistake. Fly Casual was published months before the Force Awakens movie. Fly Casual do have rules for hyperspace travel which may be the cause of this mix-up.

Cannons or Canon?

Cannon, Came before Ship Mounted hyperdrives

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

I think that's about all there is. The (now EU) Essential Guide to Warfare mentions them in passing, but no more detail than what's in the Wookieepedia article. I think hyperspace cannons are one of those things that got tossed out there in response to a fan question about how/where/when FTL travel originated in the Star Wars galaxy. If you're looking for game data, there isn't any, nor is there likely to ever be any.

Folks that want to recreate earlier eras of the SW timeline rarely ever want to go back that far, so you're treading on thin ice here. Are you asking out of curiosity, or are you trying to put a hyperspace cannon in your game somewhere?

They are only mentioned in FC as precursors to hyperdrives. Sorry, not much else. Sound like they'd probably be laid out in a network like the Mass Relays from Mass effect.

My mind went straight to the galaxy gun upon reading that thread title...

Was thinking of Using them in a Starfighter campaign, I am setting up in the Preclone wars era, As a way to keep the players from gallivanting all over the cosmos. Basically the system they are in would have a a few of these relics for Inter-system travel. Larger Vessels would still be able to jump out system.

They were mentioned in Passing in the Corellia Sector book, Stats there was a large network of them strung through the core.

I know nothing about them, but it sounds fun to crash the players on a super primitive world that doesn't have contact with the outside universe. The only way off is to strap yourselves to a giant Space Bullet and fire yourself into Hyperspace.

I know nothing about them, but it sounds fun to crash the players on a super primitive world that doesn't have contact with the outside universe. The only way off is to strap yourselves to a giant Space Bullet and fire yourself into Hyperspace.

Or similarly, a location is so obscure, remote, ancient, secretive the only way to it is to use a hyperspace cannon.

While I like the idea of them being like the Mass Effect drives, from what little is described of them it sounds more like they work in a manner similar to the Hypergates from Babylon 5, effectively 'ripping' a hole into hyperspace that the ship can accelerate through - almost a localized spacetime dilation effect similar to what hyperdrives later can do on their own. This article has a really in depth look at FTL travel in the Star Wars universe, and from it, I would postulate that the old Hyperspace Cannons recreated the effects of the hyperdrive in a localized area, allowing a ship passing through the gate to enter hyperspace. When contacting the Hyperspace Cannon initially, part of the process would orient the gate to the destination gate, thus allowing straight line "firing" of the ship from one Hyperspace Cannon to the next, which would explain where the Hyperdrive Cannon got it's name from. Once oriented, the Hyperdrive Cannon would power up, creating the conversion field from bradyonic to tachyonic matter, and then the ship would enter this field and slip into Hyperspace. When reaching the gate on the other side, the field would convert the tachyonic matter back into bradyonic matter and the ship would leave hyperspace at the destination Hyperspace Cannon.

The conversation actually has me really excited by the prospect of writing an adventure wherein the PC's find a Hyperspace Cannon that is active ... when they go through it, they find themselves in a forgotten section of the galaxy lost to the earliest of explorers ... maybe I'll throw it into the Crystal Odeum adventure I'm writing for Desslok .... hmmm .....

Well, that's brilliant. I approve!

There would be a couple of advantages to Using them,

You could blow right through interdiction fields.

Planetary Bombardment (There has to be some reason why they put the safety switches on the ship mounted ones).

Fling Probes where ever you want, Or even straight Ore.

There would be a couple of advantages to Using them,

You could blow right through interdiction fields.

Planetary Bombardment (There has to be some reason why they put the safety switches on the ship mounted ones).

Fling Probes where ever you want, Or even straight Ore.

I think your first two points are mutually exclusive. I could see how you might reason that you'd need an actual "receiving station" hyperspace cannon in order to revert back to realspace, and in that case an Interdictor or other gravity well generator wouldn't be able to stop you. On the other hand, if mass shadows don't affect a FTL object from a hyperspace cannon, then neither will a planet... which makes planetary bombardment pretty dicey.

Of course, it's your game and there's no "canon-cannon" ruleset to determine how these things are supposed to work. As long as you can achieve suspension of disbelief with your party, you're free to run it however you like!

There would be a couple of advantages to Using them,

You could blow right through interdiction fields.

Planetary Bombardment (There has to be some reason why they put the safety switches on the ship mounted ones).

Fling Probes where ever you want, Or even straight Ore.

While you would indeed blow through interdiction barriers, unforeseen cosmic anomalies (meteor showers, rogue comets, etc) would also spell disaster, making this means of space travel extremely dangerous. As the route is plotted at the time of activation, the Hyperspace Cannon would have a minimal internal propulsion system to allow it to orient itself towards the destination gate with no recorded gravity shadows in the interim space. Due to the limitations of this ancient tech, it wouldn't necessarily be able to account for any uncharted gravity shadows. While we can assume that ships would have had some elements of the modern hyperdrive in their systems (such as an energy field to allow for protection of the craft at tachyonic speeds and inertial dampers to allow for the safe acceleration and deceleration of the crew) it would have no way of independently aborting the hyperlane travel once "fired" by the cannon. This means certain destruction for anything encountering the source of a gravity shadow (unless of course it is the empty space of an interdiction field) and death for the crew aboard. The need for an interdiction field, however, would be unnecessary, as the purpose of an interdiction field is to catch a ship in hyperspace at a designated point. This is necessary because one cannot know where a ship in hyperspace is going to - that information is contained only within the ships navcomputer. The nature of Hyperspace Cannons, however, means that the destination Cannon of any ship using a Hyperspace Cannon can be gleaned not only from the systems of the Hyperspace Cannon itself, but also from deducing the destination based off of the orientation trajectory of the cannon itself. A force that then is interested in capturing a vessel using said cannon can simply lay an ambush at the destination cannon.

Your second point about planetary bombardment would most likely have happened at least once - possibly motivating the destruction of the Hyperspace Cannons after the invention of the Hyperdrive. One must assume that there was some safety system within the Hyperspace Cannons to prevent the activation of the Cannon until it was oriented in such a way that the intervening distance was free of gravity shadows. This means the Cannon couldn't be 'aimed' at a planetary body until this safety feature was defeated in some manner. Certainly, a malicious force could accomplish this, but it would take some effort, and would probably result in a conflict to whatever force would police them in that ancient time period, as the cannon would send an alert to the governing authority that it was tampered with. It would make for a really interesting adventure or story about the incident for sure, however.

As for flinging probes or ore - I don't think this is as legitimate a use as it seems. In order to survive the acceleration and deceleration, expensive equipment such as shields and inertial dampeners must be used. The size of Probe droid that would be required for the ancient version of these systems would probably limit the practicality of the droid itself, and even then, the droid could only be flung to another Cannon, which by definition of there being a cannon to receive it means that the probe would be going somewhere already explored. As for ore, the acceleration to tachyonic speeds without an inertial dampener would render the asteroid (regardless of size) to particles useless for purpose at the other end. While applying the inertial dampener and shield to a large asteroid would be possible, it would probably be more cost effective to apply the devices to the ore haulers that will eventually need to carry it to the buyers, as they will need to use Hyperspace Cannons themselves anyway.

It doesnt have much to do with hyper space cannons but before navigation computers was invented most hyper space travel was done by hyper space beacons. these beacons came out after the hyperdrives and where scattered throught know space in the early days from even before the old republic. they were placed at major crossroads on early hyperspace routes and some still exist as artifacts and monuments. also chiss space still uses technolody similar to this for navigation which could be due to certain technological restrictions.

The only problem with a receiving station is that you have to have someone get there to set up the station. How does one get to Destination X without faster than light drives to set up the catcher's mitt? I would think there has to be some kind of reversion mechanism in the bullet - something like a Funny Car drag chute, but for hyperspace.

Oooh, how about something like the NASA space laser propulsion drive ? Something that slows you down enough to revert from Hyperspace?

Also, relevant:

Oooh, how about something like the NASA space laser propulsion drive ? Something that slows you down enough to revert from Hyperspace?

*Shows up dressed like Dr. Inez Fressange from Martian Successor: Nadesico* Did someone say explanation?

This is probably going be waaaayyyyy boring for a lot of people, but a quick lesson in FTL travel. The problem with FTL travel is that we exist in what is called a Bradyonic State. That means that as motion is applied to matter, more energy has to be exerted by that matter in order to accelerate. This means that the closer we approach to the speed of light, the more energy must be exerted in order to go faster. When we follow this mathematical formula, the energy needed to pass over the 'event horizon' of lightspeed is infinite - therefore preventing matter from travelling at the speed of light. HOWEVER, there is also a state of matter that exists in quantum mechanics called the Tachyonic State. In this Tachyonic state, matter actually moves FASTER the less energy that is applied to it. Mathematically speaking, it is the inverse of the Bradyonic State. In a Tachyonic state, energy must be applied to an object to slow it down instead of accelerate. This also means that to slow an object to merely travel the speed of light, one must apply the same infinite amount of energy.

What this tells us is that isn't impossible to travel faster that the speed of light, rather, it is impossible to go EXACTLY the speed of light. It if theorized that the Hypderdrive Motivator is a device that allows us to "slip past" the speed of light by accelerating us to a point near lightspeed, and then converting us to a Tachyonic State. We then use the energy produced by our acceleration to recharge the device in hyperspace, and then activate it again to slow us to near lightspeed and then convert us to a Bradyonic State again. This behavior means that a device like Desslok suggested wouldn't be able to slow us out of lightspeed, because we cannot cross the threshold of the speed of light. We must "cheat the system" and avoid the speed of light altogether, effectively a state conversion of matter to achieve the energy necessary to cross the event horizon.

*Pushing her glasses up her nose* "But Kyla, how can we produce infinite energy without violating the Conservation of Energy and rapidly destabilizing all of existence?" you may be asking. Simply put, quite easily! The energy produced by the conversion from Tachyonic to Bradyonic (or vice versa) must occur in Plank Time! Thus, the production AND consumption of infinite energy occurs outside rational time in physics. As such, only the quantum universe experiences the effect, which is not beholden to conventional physics as we know it.

Also, relevant:

*hugs Desslok* I needed this! I miss the Tick cartoon so much!

*Shows up dressed like Dr. Inez Fressange from Martian Successor: Nadesico* Did someone say explanation?

This is probably going be waaaayyyyy boring for a lot of people, but a quick lesson in FTL travel. The problem with FTL travel is that we exist in what is called a Bradyonic State. That means that as motion is applied to matter, more energy has to be exerted by that matter in order to accelerate. This means that the closer we approach to the speed of light, the more energy must be exerted in order to go faster. When we follow this mathematical formula, the energy needed to pass over the 'event horizon' of lightspeed is infinite - therefore preventing matter from travelling at the speed of light. HOWEVER, there is also a state of matter that exists in quantum mechanics called the Tachyonic State. In this Tachyonic state, matter actually moves FASTER the less energy that is applied to it. Mathematically speaking, it is the inverse of the Bradyonic State. In a Tachyonic state, energy must be applied to an object to slow it down instead of accelerate. This also means that to slow an object to merely travel the speed of light, one must apply the same infinite amount of energy.

What this tells us is that isn't impossible to travel faster that the speed of light, rather, it is impossible to go EXACTLY the speed of light. It if theorized that the Hypderdrive Motivator is a device that allows us to "slip past" the speed of light by accelerating us to a point near lightspeed, and then converting us to a Tachyonic State. We then use the energy produced by our acceleration to recharge the device in hyperspace, and then activate it again to slow us to near lightspeed and then convert us to a Bradyonic State again. This behavior means that a device like Desslok suggested wouldn't be able to slow us out of lightspeed, because we cannot cross the threshold of the speed of light. We must "cheat the system" and avoid the speed of light altogether, effectively a state conversion of matter to achieve the energy necessary to cross the event horizon.

*Pushing her glasses up her nose* "But Kyla, how can we produce infinite energy without violating the Conservation of Energy and rapidly destabilizing all of existence?" you may be asking. Simply put, quite easily! The energy produced by the conversion from Tachyonic to Bradyonic (or vice versa) must occur in Plank Time! Thus, the production AND consumption of infinite energy occurs outside rational time in physics. As such, only the quantum universe experiences the effect, which is not beholden to conventional physics as we know it.

And this, Honored Ladies and Gentlemen, is why Kyla is super awesome .

Oooh, how about something like the NASA space laser propulsion drive ? Something that slows you down enough to revert from Hyperspace?

*Shows up dressed like Dr. Inez Fressange from Martian Successor: Nadesico* Did someone say explanation?

This is probably going be waaaayyyyy boring for a lot of people, but a quick lesson in FTL travel. The problem with FTL travel is that we exist in what is called a Bradyonic State. That means that as motion is applied to matter, more energy has to be exerted by that matter in order to accelerate. This means that the closer we approach to the speed of light, the more energy must be exerted in order to go faster. When we follow this mathematical formula, the energy needed to pass over the 'event horizon' of lightspeed is infinite - therefore preventing matter from travelling at the speed of light. HOWEVER, there is also a state of matter that exists in quantum mechanics called the Tachyonic State. In this Tachyonic state, matter actually moves FASTER the less energy that is applied to it. Mathematically speaking, it is the inverse of the Bradyonic State. In a Tachyonic state, energy must be applied to an object to slow it down instead of accelerate. This also means that to slow an object to merely travel the speed of light, one must apply the same infinite amount of energy.

What this tells us is that isn't impossible to travel faster that the speed of light, rather, it is impossible to go EXACTLY the speed of light. It if theorized that the Hypderdrive Motivator is a device that allows us to "slip past" the speed of light by accelerating us to a point near lightspeed, and then converting us to a Tachyonic State. We then use the energy produced by our acceleration to recharge the device in hyperspace, and then activate it again to slow us to near lightspeed and then convert us to a Bradyonic State again. This behavior means that a device like Desslok suggested wouldn't be able to slow us out of lightspeed, because we cannot cross the threshold of the speed of light. We must "cheat the system" and avoid the speed of light altogether, effectively a state conversion of matter to achieve the energy necessary to cross the event horizon.

*Pushing her glasses up her nose* "But Kyla, how can we produce infinite energy without violating the Conservation of Energy and rapidly destabilizing all of existence?" you may be asking. Simply put, quite easily! The energy produced by the conversion from Tachyonic to Bradyonic (or vice versa) must occur in Plank Time! Thus, the production AND consumption of infinite energy occurs outside rational time in physics. As such, only the quantum universe experiences the effect, which is not beholden to conventional physics as we know it.

I like how Star Trek "cheats the system" with Warp Drive. It is not the object moving through space-time, but rather the object moving, "warping," space-time around it by moving space-time from the area in front to the area in back and letting space-time, in a rather liquid-like form, return to its original location and moving the object.

FTL explanations in fictional universes fascinate me and the more detailed an explanation gets, the more fascinated I am about it.

Ungh. Too many words! Me go back to watching Tick now!