Implications of TLJ for star wars fleet battles(Possible light Spoilers)

By Pigsticker, in Star Wars: Armada

1 hour ago, Darth Sanguis said:

it's more than enough to satisfy MOST people who understand that this scene obviously was not typical, even if they haven't explained why...

I would just like to say thankyou for your detailed explanation as that was the main part of the film I was not a fan of but since reading your post I am now as you said satisfied with your explanation.

8 minutes ago, Yosh6314 said:

I would just like to say thankyou for your detailed explanation as that was the main part of the film I was not a fan of but since reading your post I am now as you said satisfied with your explanation.

I'm glad I could help.

2 hours ago, Frimmel said:

I appreciate all the effort and enthusiasm you put into that post DarthSanguis. But what this really boils down to in my opinion is it was a cheap way to wrap up a lazy setup and that both the setup and solution make rather a great big mess for anyone coming after.

The Death Star needing to orbit the planet doesn't make a mess. At Cloud City they weren't after Han and Leia. They wanted Luke. They deactivated the hyperdrive so the Falcon couldn't get away. They didn't need to blow it up. It was a backup plan if the capture of Skywalker went haywire. A lot of the "plot holes" that keep coming up for the OT are just people being snarky or cynical and patting themselves on the back for their cleverness.

I do respect your enthusiasm but this way out made a mess of their own movie. It was also setup quite cheaply and horribly for a character that caused one of her chief subordinates to turn to mutiny over being tight lipped for no good reason. On a certain level even setting aside the mess it makes for hyperspace, allowing them to break the rules, I'd argue that Sleepy Dinosaur Lady hadn't earned going out like that.

Blame Pablo.

Ireally don't see what he brings to star wars and he leaves me scratching my head more often than not.

There is zero excuse for continuity errors at this point yet they are happening.

3 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Let me get started by saying I love TLJ, and I love the direction Disney is taking the series. This is a great time to be a Star Wars fan, with quality new content being released regularly and a growing fanbase that's getting to enjoy these films.

That said, the movie appears to have opened up a can of worms many existing fans just can't seem to justify. Mainly, the weaponization of hyperspace.

7d9fbbc8-cb03-4cce-a097-f9c21e1bd839.gif

The big question that seems to come up is,

If it's THAT powerful, why hasn't hyperspace been weaponized before?

Throughout the series there have been conflicts with massive stations and facilities that the rebels struggled to defeat, many of which posed a massive threat to the galaxy as well. It would seem that something portrayed so powerfully on screen would have been used much sooner as a weapon. Even if the rebellion would have used smaller pieces of debris or smaller unmanned ships the damaging effects would seem to be far more effective than using basic torpedoes and turbolasers. To answer this I think it's important take a look at what it is we're actually discussing. Define our terms, and clarify from there. This way we have clear understanding of what is actually being asked. To do this, why don't we ask the simple questions first.

What is hyperspace?

"Hyperspace is an alternate dimension that can only be reached by traveling at or faster than the speed of light".
-http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperspace

How does one achieve lightspeed?

"Hyperdrives allow starships to travel faster than the speed of light, crossing space through the alternate dimension of hyperspace."
-http://www.starwars.com/databank/hyperdrive



How do hyperdrives work?

"Hyperdrives manipulate hypermatter particles in order to thrust a starship into hyperspace by taking advantage of the wrinkles in the fabric of realspace, whilst still preserving the ship's mass/energy profile. This shortens journeying distance significantly, allowing the vessel to "jump" from a specific point to another without having to travel directly between them, therefore reducing journey time by an extraordinarily large margin"
-http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperspace


What do we learn by asking these questions?
A.) Hyperspace is another dimension that is not controlled by the rules of realspace, mainly due to how it exists over ripples of reality.
B.) When a ship achieves lightspeed, it is not doing so by use of conventional thrusters, but instead being thrust into hyperspace allowing the ship to travel across the wrinkles in reality.

This leads us to a more complicated but essential question.

How do objects in hyperspace interact with objects in real space?

Large objects in real space cast "mass shadows" in hyperspace, so hyperspace jumps necessitate very precise calculations. Without those, a vessel could fly right through a star or another celestial body.
-http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperspace


How large does an object need to be to cast a mass shadow?

This is our first official grey area in the lore. Even the legends are particularly sparse regarding this idea. It is generally suggested that these objects are not only larger than most ships, but often planetoid in size.

With this information, is it possible to close this can of "hyperspace attack" worms?

-It is entirely plausible, due to the way hyperspace exists over the folds of real space, for a ship to hyperspace through another ship in real space, given that the first ship is fully contained in hyperspace.

-It's entirely possible that most ships, even those the size of the supremacy, SSD, and up to the Death Star/Death Star II may lack enough gravitational force to create a "mass shadow" in hyperspace. (The lore makes a point of stating celestial bodies cause mass shadows but not much else, this could be reinforced with evidence from EP IV, when the falcon arrives at the debris field of Alderaan. You'll notice that the ship exits hyperspace and is immediately bombarded by debris, yet did not experience a mass shadow issue while in hyperspace. With that information we could conclude that it is possible some objects have little to no effect on other objects in hyperspace https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGp_5gOww0E ).

-Given the likelihood of the possibilities above, it's possible that hyperspace weapons were thought of, tested, and never refined. (It's important to keep in mind that the history and lore of Star Wars will never be 100% complete. There's 20,000 years of galactic history and hyperspace travel existed for most of that. There's no way we could ever have a complete history, but based on the information that's given, it's pretty easy to extrapolate the important details.)

So what could cause the idea of hyperspace weapons to not work? Why wouldn't the rebellion invest in them over conventional weapons?

a.) Common targets are not massive enough to generate mass shadows in hyper space. If we consider the Imperial class the staple of imperial might, the power behind the imperial forces, based on what's stated above it's quite likely that the ship just isn't big enough to hit in hyperspace. So even if the rebellion had started strapping engines and hyperdrives to debris or asteroids or torpedoes, there's a good chance they'd be ineffective in the ability to actually hit a ship the size of an ISD or smaller.

b.) Superweapons are typically a surprise in Star Wars. The canon verifies that the rebellion had very little time to plan for an attack against the death star in EP IV. Even if the Death Star was large enough to create a mass shadow, which, there isn't any real evidence to suggest it was, it was basically a surprise. They'd have had no time to develop or test hyperspace weapons.

c.) Staying hidden after the destruction of the death Star was a priority, especially with the imperial fleet engaging the rebel fleet so aggressively. Testing hyperspace weapons could become difficult, and again, the rebellion would be faced with a lack of appropriately sized targets. At that point investing in conventional weapons makes more sense than testing hyperspace weapons that are unlikely to have a valid target. Even if the cost savings over traditional ships made sense, the rebellion was well funded enough to care about the effectiveness of it's weapons.

d.) Traps are designed to draw targets out. The only real chance the rebellion would have had to test hyperspace weapons would have been on the deathstar II. Given the size of the DS2, even while in complete, it could have had enough mass to create a shdow in hyperspace and be a real target, but even that isn't 100% certain. What we do know is the whole point of this trap was to make the rebellion believe the station was already VERY vulnerable. They weren't expecting a fleet. They weren't expecting a functional Death Star. They were tricked into attacking the station.

All these points basically boil down to a simple answer of the targets they expected to face, weren't targetable from hyperspace and the ones that were, were either too sudden or expected to be too weak to justify the risk in testing.

Let just presume that everyone agrees with these statements so far (Which I know they wont, I can already sense the mile long book of nerd hate boners ready to pick this apart instead of being satisfied with a plausible answer based in canon lore, because Star Wars fans are the worst...) The question then becomes,


How did the Raddus manage to hit the Supremacy, and why was Hux worried once he realized Hondo's plan if hyperspace ramming wasn't a thing?

"Pre-hyperspace" speed up. Almost every time a ship jumps to hyperspace there's a moment where the ship is bending real space before it breaks into hyperspace. This is typically shown with starlines from the cockpit, and the ship zooming off very quickly before disappearing. As shown:

VmA8X2T.gif
Z1N7FrB.gif
7ca667ab1550d107b071e8d4e4108b97.gif

From the several appearances on screen, it's pretty clear to see that the starship travels some distance at "pre lightspeed" before being thrust into the alternate dimension of hyperspace. During this time, I believe the ships will still interact with other ships in realspace. This is how the Raddus hit the Supremacy. Both ships had such a large cross section, getting them to collide before reaching lightspeed was just a matter of calculating trajectory, and since the supremacy didn't change course when the Raddus turned around, it was basically a sitting duck. At that point is was just a calculation of mass times speed....


Okay okay okay, even if I believe that, Darth Sanguis, why wouldn't the rebels weaponize "pre lightspeed"?

We don't have many real answers here.

It could be they tried and just weren't effective. There's a lot to consider. Firstly let's consider the answers given in A-D above. They would have been building these weapons to fight ships the size of an ISD or smaller. While this is an easy target for an x-wing to target weaponizing prelightspeed to hit one could prove tricky. Sure, you could add hyperdives to torpedoes, it would increase their effective range for sure, but it may not necessarily do more damage, it would also increase the cost per device exponentially, as an actual nav computer would need installed, failsafes for misses installed, likely a combat droid to guide it, as well as the hyperdive itself. That's some expensive ordinance. One idea mentioned using asteroids. which could save some money but how effective would it be against fleets? Realistically, we don't know. An asteroid isn't built like a ship. They aren't designed. They just are. A chunk could break off. It also comes to mind that bringing them to battle could prove tricky. Would a large cargo vessel carry them and dump them off to be used? Would they jump in from hyperspace like a starship? Either way, you're looking at heavy costs in either piloting/gear for hyperspace travel outside of combat or a ship to load and unload them. Once they're on the battlefield, they're expensive shieldless targets. Even if they went off without a hitch, is there any guarantee they work? Sure an ISD was crippled by an asteroid in ESB, but we never really get a good idea of it's size. For all we know that ship could have been hit by 30 or 40 asteroids before it was done in. How massive are the rocks we're throwing at these ISDs? The bigger they are, the more expensive they are. The bigger they are the easier to hit. How expensive is each one going to be compared to it's effectiveness? Even if it's half the cost of an X-wing, it's only good against ships. What happens when the fighters swarm in first? How close would you have to get before using one? Red range? Blue? We also have to consider how tractor beams and interdiction fields can be use to slow and stop ships.

Here's what we know for sure. They didn't use "pre-lightspeed" as a weapon. Being a Star Wars fan means we may just have to sit here and wait for them to write in a reason why, and accept the possibility that we may never know.

Getting hung up on this seems just as silly as getting hung up on the original death star not just hyperspacing to the correct side of Yavin to blow up the base... or the Empire not simply destroying the Falcon once it was parked in Cloud City.

I too, appreciate the effort put into this. It's a shame it falls apart almost immediately simply by taking it all in context, almost exactly as you've presented it.

TLD;R summation? 95% of what you said is wrong, and the other 5% is used out of context or irrelevant to what you're trying to claim. Feel free to read on if you want details explaining why, or just take my word for it. :)

You state as part of your first conclusion: "When a ship achieves lightspeed, it is not doing so by use of conventional thrusters (emphasis added), but instead being thrust into hyperspace allowing the ship to travel across the wrinkles in reality."

But your support for this... "Hyperspace is an alternate dimension that can only be reached by traveling at or faster than the speed of light (emphasis added)..." invalidates you by clearly stating that you must already be traveling at light speed before the hyperdrive will "...manipulate hypermatter particles in order to thrust a starship into hyperspace by taking advantage of the wrinkles in the fabric of realspace." In fact, not only are you wrong, but you never answer your own question of how the ship reaches light speed at all, just state as fact that it is not by conventional engines.

So, problem 1, you have failed to explain how a ship reaches light speed to even go into hyperspace.

Problem 2: Relating mass to size ("large" objects) is like comparing apples to alligators. Not only is it completely inaccurate, it is flat out contradicted in the lore because Interdictors project mass shadows well larger than their "size." There is no "grey area" regarding how "large" something needs to be, the definition you gave earlier flat out tells you: "Hyperdrives manipulate hypermatter particles in order to thrust a starship into hyperspace by taking advantage of the wrinkles in the fabric of realspace, whilst still preserving the ship's mass/energy profile. (emphasis added)" The ships in Hyperspace have the exact same mass they did before they entered it (with the exception of artificially produced gravity wells); zero grey area.

It is more likely (IMO) to conclude that ships in hyperspace simply miss each other than it is to argue that they can pass through each other, like criss-crossing rounds of amunnition being fired upon a battlefield.

"It's entirely possible that most ships, even those the size of the supremacy, SSD, and up to the Death Star/Death Star II may lack enough gravitational force to create a "mass shadow" in hyperspace." --- Incorrect. In fact, the very definition of what hyperspace is absolutely contradicts this; "...whilst still preserving the ship's mass/energy profile."

"a.) Common targets are not massive enough to generate mass shadows in hyper space." --- Incorrect. This is explicitly contradicted by lore defining how a Hyperdrive works.

"b.) Superweapons are typically a surprise in Star Wars ... They'd have had no time to develop or test hyperspace weapons." --- Incorrect. Yes, there are a lot of surprises, but so what? That has no bearing on the time to develop hyperspace weapons...unless you're suggesting that governments only develop weapon technology after someone else uses it on them? The very idea of that would mean that the Death Star's and Starkiller Base would never have been developed. In canon, there are 20,000+ years of hyperspace travel that you yourself remarked on, in which someone would have been researching those weapons. The fact there aren't any after that long is sort of an Occam's razor in regards to their practicality/existence.

"c.) Staying hidden after the destruction of the death Star was a priority, especially with the imperial fleet engaging the rebel fleet so aggressively. Testing hyperspace weapons could become difficult, and again, the rebellion would be faced with a lack of appropriately sized targets. At that point investing in conventional weapons makes more sense than testing hyperspace weapons that are unlikely to have a valid target. Even if the cost savings over traditional ships made sense, the rebellion was well funded enough to care about the effectiveness of it's weapons." --- Strawman. Every enemy ship was a target. If a GR-75 could take out an Imperial Star Destroyer by hypering into it, that's a better than fair exchange militarily. But that's not the reason this is a strawman. You only reference the rebellion researching hyperweapons; it would have been practically every government that existed for the duration of that 20,000+ years. The history of the Star Wars universe is one of war after war between competing powers spanning the full history of Hyperspace travel and before, yet no one seems to have developed a hyperweapon in all that time. This is comparable to having Nuclear power for 20,000+ years an never discovering an atomic bomb. Again, a bit of an Occam's razor.

"d.) Traps are designed to draw targets out. The only real chance the rebellion would have had to test hyperspace weapons would have been on the deathstar II. Given the size of the DS2, even while in complete, it could have had enough mass to create a shdow in hyperspace and be a real target, but even that isn't 100% certain. " --- Incorrect. The hyperdrive definition states flatly that every ship produces a comparable mass shadow in hyperspace, so it is 100% certain the Death Star 2 (and every ship in the universe) projects mass shadows in Hyperspace. Everything was a potential target for a hyperweapon.

"Let just presume that everyone agrees with these statements so far (Which I know they wont, I can already sense the mile long book of nerd hate boners ready to pick this apart instead of being satisfied with a plausible answer based in canon lore, because Star Wars fans are the worst...)" --- Okay. So, this boils down to simply stating "Let's just all agree I'm right, and anyone with enough audacity to show I'm not is not only a horrible person, but a (insert insult of choice)." Your answers aren't plausible, are explicitly and repeatedly contradicted by the very evidence you use to support them, and insulting people in advance for seeing such does not make you less wrong.

"How did the Raddus manage to hit the Supremacy, and why was Hux worried once he realized Hondo's plan if hyperspace ramming wasn't a thing? "Pre-hyperspace" speed up." --- So, your answer is Hyperspace had nothing to do with it? She just sped up and rammed like any other ship and hyperspace had nothing to do with it? Your posted lore claims you can't go into Hyperspace until you already going light speed, so that could work...but then we're right back to why isn't this done all the time? Just accelerate to light speed using your engines, and don't engage your hyperdrive; a devastating tactic that any outnumbered group fighting to survive would leap to use. I can see this stance, and you could argue that it does in fact make sense and explain the sheer amount of damage done (imagine a 3km asteroid hitting something at 186,000m/s and then fragmenting), but that puts us right back to why isn't this done all the time? We should see droid piloted GR-75's ramming ISD bridges and landing bays every 10 minutes. Why, the very existence of a 12km class of ships (to say nothing of a ship 60km wide?) is pretty strong circumstantial proof it's not a thing.

"From the several appearances on screen, it's pretty clear to see that the starship travels some distance at "pre lightspeed" before being thrust into the alternate dimension of hyperspace. During this time, I believe the ships will still interact with other ships in realspace." --- Incorrect. What we see is most likely an optical illusion. This is supported by the also cannon images from Rebels of ships executing failed jumps to Hyperspace; "leaping away," and appearing almost exactly where they were. I would argue this shows us that ships actually do things exactly the opposite of what you (and it seems the lore) claim they do. That the hyperdrive is used first, warping the lines of reality and making even a tiny distance into a massive one. The ships move only millimeters, yet to others outside the "wormhole effect" the ship appears to travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometers in seconds because, in a sense, the ship has. Once in the "hyperspace field" the ship accelerates to light speed, and crosses the much "shorter" distances of the alternate reality." When the Interdictor shut down the "hyperspace field," we see evidence of this effect. Distance is warped by the Hyperdrive, the ship seems to race away, the field collapses, and the ship has hardly moved. Granted, my given argument (about the order the drives are used) goes against what is stated, but even disregarding my explanation for what we see, the failed Hyperspace jumps from Rebels prove your conclusion incorrect.

"Okay okay okay, even if I believe that, Darth Sanguis, why wouldn't the rebels weaponize "pre lightspeed"?" --- Wow...practically everything you say here is wrong. First, the scope of this question is off. It should read "Why hasn't anyone, in 20,000+ years of Hyperspace travel, ever used "pre-light speed" as a weapon? Again, while there is no stated absolute, I refer you to Occam's Razor ("because you can't") over theories that are not only unsubstantiated, but often self-contradictary.
"It could be they tried and just weren't effective. There's a lot to consider. Firstly let's consider the answers given in A-D above." --- These were all incorrect conclusions and do not support anything you've stated. As such, they can be discarded.

"They would have been building these weapons to fight ships the size of an ISD or smaller. While this is an easy target for an x-wing to target weaponizing prelightspeed to hit one could prove tricky. Sure, you could add hyperdives to torpedoes, it would increase their effective range for sure, but it may not necessarily do more damage, it would also increase the cost per device exponentially, as an actual nav computer would need installed, failsafes for misses installed, likely a combat droid to guide it, as well as the hyperdive itself. That's some expensive ordinance." --- The targeting computer on an X-Wing was almost able to lock on to a 2 meter wide port while traveling at full speed. The idea that they would miss a kilometer long warship more often than hitting it is laughable. Three fighters (or any spotter ship) should easily be able to triangulate the exact position of a target ship's bridge or docking bay, transmit that data to a freighter well out of weapon range, and then the astromech droid aboard can initiate the attack. If it's "pre-lightspeed" then the ship is closing at 186,000 mps, not a lot of time to get out of the way. If it's a Hyperspace attack, you can be even further away. It stops being about range, and becomes about knowing the targets location.

"One idea mentioned using asteroids. which could save some money but how effective would it be against fleets? Realistically, we don't know. An asteroid isn't built like a ship. They aren't designed. They just are. A chunk could break off. It also comes to mind that bringing them to battle could prove tricky. Would a large cargo vessel carry them and dump them off to be used? Would they jump in from hyperspace like a starship? Either way, you're looking at heavy costs in either piloting/gear for hyperspace travel outside of combat or a ship to load and unload them. Once they're on the battlefield, they're expensive shieldless targets. Even if they went off without a hitch, is there any guarantee they work? Sure an ISD was crippled by an asteroid in ESB, but we never really get a good idea of it's size. For all we know that ship could have been hit by 30 or 40 asteroids before it was done in. How massive are the rocks we're throwing at these ISDs? The bigger they are, the more expensive they are. The bigger they are the easier to hit. How expensive is each one going to be compared to it's effectiveness? Even if it's half the cost of an X-wing, it's only good against ships. What happens when the fighters swarm in first? How close would you have to get before using one? Red range? Blue? We also have to consider how tractor beams and interdiction fields can be use to slow and stop ships." --- How effective are bullets? We know. Based on the massive variety of designs of ship superstructure we see in Star Wars, it doesn't really seem to matter what shape a ship is for a Hyperdrive to work. If pieces might break off, why don't we ever see an example of a ship leaving part of itself behind? But the real issue is why not use ships? You don't need to waste time on asteroids when GR-75 and other style transports are not only all over the galaxy, they're cheap. Luke states clearly that they could almost buy a ship for 10,000 credits, and even a ship the size of the Falcon would prove devastating if it was to hit an object moving at 186,000mps. We know from TLJ that a ship 1/20th your size can tear your ship apart. If that mass scale stays consistent (with no reason to expect it doesn't, since mass stays the same in both realities, as stated by canon), any ship 50 meters (the Falcon was, what, 30?) or larger could easily destroy any Imperial Star Destroyer. A single passenger star-liner could have taken out the Executor.

That this is not a regularly used tactic is pretty much "proof" it isn't possible. Oh sure, you can argue that it's like Nukes or biological weapons...that both sides have agreed to not use it out of fear the other side will; but those kinds of agreements are not kept by the kind of people that build Death Stars.

This is an example of thoughtless writing, nothing more. People can, and will, try for years to explain it away, but that's all it was. I do agree it would be nice if we could all just accept it and get along, but we're all individuals, and see things different ways. In the end, sometimes your love of something can drive you to the heights of silliness. :)

Edited by Arowmund
Removal of statement that might seem snarky

What I expect we'll see, down the road, is that the collision was only possible because the Supremacy hyperspace computer was still calculating where the Raddus was going to jump to, and because of redundant systems and the heat of the moment, when Radduss went to hyperspace, the Supremacy did as well, trying to "track" her. Since Supremacy was the Raddus's target location, this resulted in both trying to go to the exact same place, leaving both ships occupying the same space/time. The resulting explosion was only possible because the Supremacy was tracking her; something no one had ever succeeded in doing before. It was this unique set of circumstances that allowed for the event to be a "one time thing" never seen before, or since.

The fear displayed on the faces of the bridge crew doesn't have to be because they thought she was going to ram them at light speed; it could simply be the natural fear at seeing a 3km long warship coming at you head on, at high speed.

In the end, we the fans don't need to "fix" this. Or "explain" it. As I've said before, it's like the Kessel Run; give them time, and they'll justify why it worked. :)

Edited by Arowmund
31 minutes ago, Arowmund said:

You state as part of your first conclusion: "When a ship achieves lightspeed, it is not doing so by use of conventional thrusters (emphasis added), but instead being thrust into hyperspace allowing the ship to travel across the wrinkles in reality."

But your support for this... "Hyperspace is an alternate dimension that can only be reached by traveling at or faster than the speed of light (emphasis added)..." invalidates you by clearly stating that you must already be traveling at light speed before the hyperdrive will "...manipulate hypermatter particles in order to thrust a starship into hyperspace by taking advantage of the wrinkles in the fabric of realspace." In fact, not only are you wrong, but you never answer your own question of how the ship reaches light speed at all, just state as fact that it is not by conventional engines.

So, problem 1, you have failed to explain how a ship reaches light speed to even go into hyperspace.

Son, this isn't me, this is how the canon defines hyperspace. According to the links I provide which is sourced from canon materials, the ship is thrust to lightspeed by the hyperdrive. Not the sublight engines.

31 minutes ago, Arowmund said:

Problem 2: Relating mass to size ("large" objects) is like comparing apples to alligators. Not only is it completely inaccurate, it is flat out contradicted in the lore because Interdictors project mass shadows well larger than their "size." There is no "grey area" regarding how "large" something needs to be, the definition you gave earlier flat out tells you: "Hyperdrives manipulate hypermatter particles in order to thrust a starship into hyperspace by taking advantage of the wrinkles in the fabric of realspace, whilst still preserving the ship's mass/energy profile. (emphasis added)" The ships in Hyperspace have the exact same mass they did before they entered it (with the exception of artificially produced gravity wells); zero grey area.

Comparing mass to size in terms of ships which use a relativity similar building materials however is not so confusing. Interdictors were purposely excluded from these BASIC conclusion since they are not relevant in enough of the canon to justify a lack of hyeperspace weaponry. I don't have the time to waste on every minute detail. Just because the ship doesn't gain or lose mass while traveling through hyperspace doesn't mean that the size or mass can't effect what it interacts with? I think you are projecting a point I wasn't trying to make here pal.

31 minutes ago, Arowmund said:

It is more likely (IMO) to conclude that ships in hyperspace simply miss each other than it is to argue that they can pass through each other, like criss-crossing rounds of amunnition being fired upon a battlefield.

"It's entirely possible that most ships, even those the size of the supremacy, SSD, and up to the Death Star/Death Star II may lack enough gravitational force to create a "mass shadow" in hyperspace." --- Incorrect. In fact, the very definition of what hyperspace is absolutely contradicts this; "...whilst still preserving the ship's mass/energy profile."


And clearly here's where you misread or misunderstood the information provided. I didn't state two ships in hyperspace could miss each other. I stated that one ship traveling through hyperspace would not interact with a ship in real space. As they describe hyperspace in the lore, you're traveling over the folds of real space. In short, objects in real space don't exist in hyperspace unless they have enough gravitational effect to cause a mass shadow.


I'm not going to keep going point by point. You keep claiming my assertions are wrong, but fail to source WHY. All my assertions are taken from direct definitions. You claim those definitions contradict what I'm stating. Where? You either have no idea what you're talking about or don't know how to communicate what it is you're trying to say well enough to make any real sense.

I'm not going to sit here and argue with every book writing troglodyte that has a stick up their bum about the new movie. These definitions were taken from the lore, all I've done is given possibilities that could help fill plot holes for people who want to like this movie and aren't bent on how it "ruined" everything.

BTW, your response is, by definition, exactly what I meant by:

"I can already sense the mile long book of nerd hate boners ready to pick this apart instead of being satisfied with a plausible answer based in canon lore, because Star Wars fans are the worst..."

Edited by Darth Sanguis

Aren't "lightspeed" and "traveling through hyperspace" referencing the same thing?

2 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

Aren't "lightspeed" and "traveling through hyperspace" referencing the same thing?

Pretty much, but you have to be at lightspeed to travel through hyperspace. So it's also a prerequisite. I think in the movies they shorthand them as the same thing.

What really fries my noodle about this whole process isn't so much jumping into hyperspace, but exiting it.

The way I see it, and this is by no means correct, is that the process would have to work like this:

A ship doing 200 MPH in real space activates it's hyperdrive. The hyperdrive basically pushes the ship into hyperspace without the ship actually achieving the prerequisite 186,282 miles per second in real space by manipulating hypermatter particles. Once in hyperspace the hyperdrives moves the ship over the folds of real space, causing the ship to travel faster than a particle of light could travel through real space. (That's where we get the .5 past light speed references since in our universe it's impossible to travel faster than light. The different variances are how fast each hyperdrive can push a ship through hyperspace.) In the same way that the hyperdive thrusts the ship into hyperspace it then does the reverse and the ship reenters real space doing the 200 MPH the sub lights had it at before...



Because while it makes enough sense that a ship could technically reach lightspeed in a few seconds with the help of an engine, it wouldn't make sense that the ship could slow down from lightspeed in a few seconds....

2 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:



"I can already sense the mile long book of nerd hate boners ready to pick this apart instead of being satisfied with a plausible answer based in canon lore, because Star Wars fans are the worst..."

Actually, it's the star wars script writers that are the worst. . .

The writers for Clone Wars and Rebels do what they want with Obi Wan and Anakin literally being in every single battle of the clone wars and blue haired kids with energy space slingshots. There are different directors and writers for the new movies that each have their own "vision" of what it should be and they will do what they want so long as people continue to go and feast on their sad offerings to the tune of 1 billion dollars. Disney does not care about lore or the universe, they are out to make money and will ultimately sign off on whatever they think will do so. Some peope like it, some don't, but as far as I'm concerned the new star wars isn't my star wars.

That's why, in my opinion, games like Armada, Legions and the RPGs are great, because that CAN be the star wars I love and remember.

Edited by kenngp
9 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

well? why not?

Well then you just gave a very boring story about how frodo wishes they would invent dvds already so he can have an in flight movie..... possibly die hard.

39 minutes ago, Noosh said:

Well then you just gave a very boring story about how frodo wishes they would invent dvds already so he can have an in flight movie..... possibly die hard.

Well that and the fact that the eagles going to Mordor is a lot like God’s angels stepping in to fight WW2.

In a letter, Tolkien did say it would be an awfully boring story if they used Gwaihir to solve all their problems.

1 hour ago, ricefrisbeetreats said:

Well that and the fact that the eagles going to Mordor is a lot like God’s angels stepping in to fight WW2.

In a letter, Tolkien did say it would be an awfully boring story if they used Gwaihir to solve all their problems.

While I agree I think that when a writer creates a big issue like this and the only reason someone doesn't use it is because it is "boring" is a horrible argument.

4 hours ago, Animewarsdude said:

While I agree I think that when a writer creates a big issue like this and the only reason someone doesn't use it is because it is "boring" is a horrible argument.

I agree with the boring excuse being a bad argument, you need to look at it in context:

The eagles are servants of Manwë, one of the top Valar. Valar are essentially Greek/Norse gods. Gandalf is a Maia and another servant of Manwë. So when Gandalf gets captured by Saruman, Manwë sends Gwaihir (the king of the eagles) to tell Gandalf to “get back out there”.

The other question I have is whether or not they were trying to get to the Eyrie in the first place. Remember that the eagles are on the other side of the Misty Mountains from Rivendell. They could have been attempting to get there before being thwarted by Saruman and taking the route to Moria. Gandalf does say “fly you fools!” ?

There’s a lot that could be unpacked. I think it really boils down to what the story is trying to say. In Beowulf, why doesn’t Odin’s valkyries kill Grendel? Well, it’s about Beowulf (and isn’t he great?). Tolkien was writing a more modernized version of the Norse epics.

Then again, I could be way over analyzing things. My wife says I’m crazy. Good luck!

Edited by ricefrisbeetreats
6 hours ago, ricefrisbeetreats said:

Well that and the fact that the eagles going to Mordor is a lot like God’s angels stepping in to fight WW2.

Good point. Who needs God's angels when you have the British!

53 minutes ago, ricefrisbeetreats said:

I agree with the boring excuse being a bad argument, you need to look at it in context:

The eagles are servants of Manwë, one of the top Valar. Valar are essentially Greek/Norse gods. Gandalf is a Maia and another servant of Manwë. So when Gandalf gets captured by Saruman, Manwë sends Gwaihir (the king of the eagles) to tell Gandalf to “get back out there”.

The other question I have is whether or not they were trying to get to the Eyrie in the first place. Remember that the eagles are on the other side of the Misty Mountains from Rivendell. They could have been attempting to get there before being thwarted by Saruman and taking the route to Moria. Gandalf does say “fly you fools!” ?

There’s a lot that could be unpacked. I think it really boils down to what the story is trying to say. In Beowulf, why doesn’t Odin’s valkyries kill Grendel? Well, it’s about Beowulf (and isn’t he great?). Tolkien was writing a more modernized version of the Norse epics.

Then again, I could be way over analyzing things. My wife says I’m crazy. Good luck!

I've seen a theory that said the reason the eagles couldn't take the ring it's because it's too dangerous because of their power, because the ring affects even people around it, and the magnitude of how it affects is based on how powerful they are, this is why gandalf can't take the ring, and tells Frodo to, as Hobbits are basically the weakest so the less affected, and so the eagles with all their power would be quite dangerous to be around the ring

11 minutes ago, Visovics said:

I've seen a theory that said the reason the eagles couldn't take the ring it's because it's too dangerous because of their power, because the ring affects even people around it, and the magnitude of how it affects is based on how powerful they are, this is why gandalf can't take the ring, and tells Frodo to, as Hobbits are basically the weakest so the less affected, and so the eagles with all their power would be quite dangerous to be around the ring

Indeed. In fact Gandalf says something like that when Frodo offers him the ring. How in his effort to do good, it would do evil. Galadriel's little wig-out in Lothlorien is her imagining what she could do with the ring. The Eagles could be keeping their distance so they, too, aren't affected. It might just be my head canon, but I always thought the Eagles were jerks.

Personally, I think the Eagles just aren't worried a lot about the War of the Ring. It's a war of mortals. Sauron was the lieutenant of the Devil (see: Morgoth) and his power was bound to the mortal realm. If Sauron won, the Valar wouldn't be worse for wear and it's been shown in the Silmarillion that Sauron is kind of a chump. Send in Tulkas and we've got ourselves a WWE match!

Oh man, it feels good to geek out once in awhile. Thanks!

16 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Pretty much, but you have to be at lightspeed to travel through hyperspace. So it's also a prerequisite. I think in the movies they shorthand them as the same thing.

What really fries my noodle about this whole process isn't so much jumping into hyperspace, but exiting it.

The way I see it, and this is by no means correct, is that the process would have to work like this:

A ship doing 200 MPH in real space activates it's hyperdrive. The hyperdrive basically pushes the ship into hyperspace without the ship actually achieving the prerequisite 186,282 miles per second in real space by manipulating hypermatter particles. Once in hyperspace the hyperdrives moves the ship over the folds of real space, causing the ship to travel faster than a particle of light could travel through real space. (That's where we get the .5 past light speed references since in our universe it's impossible to travel faster than light. The different variances are how fast each hyperdrive can push a ship through hyperspace.) In the same way that the hyperdive thrusts the ship into hyperspace it then does the reverse and the ship reenters real space doing the 200 MPH the sub lights had it at before...



Because while it makes enough sense that a ship could technically reach lightspeed in a few seconds with the help of an engine, it wouldn't make sense that the ship could slow down from lightspeed in a few seconds....

My argument is that craft in Star Wars do not in fact ever travel at the speed of light or nearly 300,000,000 m/s. They shorthand them as "the same thing" but they are the same thing for "traveling through hyperspace." Traveling through hyperspace is not the same thing as moving the same velocity as light in a vacuum.

"Lightspeed" is used by Han Solo in "Star Wars" to convey to the audience that the Falcon is going to be traveling very very fast, and then uses "Traveling through hyperspace" to convey that they will not still then need years to get between stars.

There is no issue with exiting hyperspace as you're never traveling the speed of light. You travel in hyperspace to shorten the distance as well as travel at a higher velocity. The values we hear are just technobabble to convey the ideas.

You can cut off a ship's escape to hyperspace by getting in its way both as there is some velocity required to enter hyperspace and to bollocks up the fleeing ship's trajectory. Half a degree over interstellar distances is a not insignificant distance. Han Solo is upset but not particularly surprised that he didn't come out of hyperspace exactly where he thought he would for example in his transit between Tatooine and Alderaan. You have to get clear so you can get on a correct line.

If we take these things and then consider what I'm advocating as far as rules for the story universe we see how this can create drama and allow for clever flying and contests between the heroes and villains that can lead to escapes or the villain using a clever means to find the hidden base. It can create a situation that explains how small bands of people can hide from a galaxy spanning empire.

TLJ's cheap out of their lazy setup and the lazy setup (can track through hyperspace) messes all of that up.

21 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

My argument is that craft in Star Wars do not in fact ever travel at the speed of light or nearly 300,000,000 m/s. They shorthand them as "the same thing" but they are the same thing for "traveling through hyperspace." Traveling through hyperspace is not the same thing as moving the same velocity as light in a vacuum.

"Lightspeed" is used by Han Solo in "Star Wars" to convey to the audience that the Falcon is going to be traveling very very fast, and then uses "Traveling through hyperspace" to convey that they will not still then need years to get between stars.

There is no issue with exiting hyperspace as you're never traveling the speed of light. You travel in hyperspace to shorten the distance as well as travel at a higher velocity. The values we hear are just technobabble to convey the ideas.

So we basically agree here, except that I think they measure the quality of the hyperdrive system by how much faster than "lightspeed" it can make the ship travel through hyperspace. (Since there appear to be different quality hyperdrives).

24 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

You can cut off a ship's escape to hyperspace by getting in its way both as there is some velocity required to enter hyperspace and to bollocks up the fleeing ship's trajectory. Half a degree over interstellar distances is a not insignificant distance. Han Solo is upset but not particularly surprised that he didn't come out of hyperspace exactly where he thought he would for example in his transit between Tatooine and Alderaan. You have to get clear so you can get on a correct line.

If we take these things and then consider what I'm advocating as far as rules for the story universe we see how this can create drama and allow for clever flying and contests between the heroes and villains that can lead to escapes or the villain using a clever means to find the hidden base. It can create a situation that explains how small bands of people can hide from a galaxy spanning empire.

I also agree with this.

25 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

TLJ's cheap out of their lazy setup and the lazy setup (can track through hyperspace) messes all of that up.

This is where I disagree. (looking past the opinion that it was a lazy set and a lazy out, as I disagree, and myy opinion is the opposite)

I do not believe it messes up the established lore to add new idea. It's not like this is the first time a ship has been tracked through hyperspace, it's just that previous trackers had to be attached to the ship it was tracking. The death Star tracked the Falcon through hyperspace to the Yavin base, Obiwan tracked the Slave I through hyperspace to Geonosis, it's not really a new idea. Seeing an actual tech advancement in a galaxy that appears to have been using the same tech for nearly 3000 years (looking at the ToR games) adds to the lore. When the FO returns in IX, are all their ships going to be able to track through hyperspace? What will the resistance do to circumvent this? Will they go the route of Firefly and design devices to spoof ships signatures, or maybe they'll lead FO cruisers into traps through asteroid belts and other hazardous areas.

I'm sorry. I'm not sold, at all, that bending lore or adding new abilities breaks the series. It add potential for NEW things to happen. I love the OT, I even like the PT, but I've seen those. If I wanna watch those, I have the Blu-ray. I'm stoked the ST is probing the limitations of preconceived notions.

Okay, we've circled back around to "just do something cool."

I find it ironic that you advocate for something NEW like losing the bad guys in an asteroid belt or stealing something from Firefly that they already stole in Rebels. :rolleyes:

1 hour ago, Frimmel said:

My argument is that craft in Star Wars do not in fact ever travel at the speed of light or nearly 300,000,000 m/s. They shorthand them as "the same thing" but they are the same thing for "traveling through hyperspace." Traveling through hyperspace is not the same thing as moving the same velocity as light in a vacuum.

"Lightspeed" is used by Han Solo in "Star Wars" to convey to the audience that the Falcon is going to be traveling very very fast, and then uses "Traveling through hyperspace" to convey that they will not still then need years to get between stars.

There is no issue with exiting hyperspace as you're never traveling the speed of light. You travel in hyperspace to shorten the distance as well as travel at a higher velocity. The values we hear are just technobabble to convey the ideas.

You can cut off a ship's escape to hyperspace by getting in its way both as there is some velocity required to enter hyperspace and to bollocks up the fleeing ship's trajectory. Half a degree over interstellar distances is a not insignificant distance. Han Solo is upset but not particularly surprised that he didn't come out of hyperspace exactly where he thought he would for example in his transit between Tatooine and Alderaan. You have to get clear so you can get on a correct line.

If we take these things and then consider what I'm advocating as far as rules for the story universe we see how this can create drama and allow for clever flying and contests between the heroes and villains that can lead to escapes or the villain using a clever means to find the hidden base. It can create a situation that explains how small bands of people can hide from a galaxy spanning empire.

TLJ's cheap out of their lazy setup and the lazy setup (can track through hyperspace) messes all of that up.

In the past they had it where you could calculate the vector of a jump and then make the same jump, usually giving the first person to jump a few moments to at least jump to another system to try and lose people. My best guess is that the hyperspace tracker they now have sort of sets it up where you lock onto a ship and so long as you are within the same system or area it automatically calculates their jump vector rather than you needing to calculate that yourself. And if they went even further they could say it preps the hyperdrive for a jump to follow after them, reducing the time between when the first person escapes and the other shows up in the same system short behind them.

13 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

like losing the bad guys in an asteroid belt

Well, I was actually considering ambushing. If they're tracking you, then it wouldn't matter where you "lost" them you'd have to find a way to disable or destroy them. So jump to a debris field that has rebel mines in it already. FO destroyer jumps in to follow... BLAM ambush the **** out of it. Rebel victory. Medals to everyone but droids and wookies... moving on.

15 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

stealing something from Firefly that they already stole in Rebels

Let's not get petty. Just because I'm not dedicating my time to coming up with something new for a an example doesn't mean they won't or can't.... we're coming back to the part of the conversation where you're complaining just to complain.

1 hour ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Well, I was actually considering ambushing. If they're tracking you, then it wouldn't matter where you "lost" them you'd have to find a way to disable or destroy them. So jump to a debris field that has rebel mines in it already. FO destroyer jumps in to follow... BLAM ambush the **** out of it. Rebel victory. Medals to everyone but droids and wookies... moving on.

Let's not get petty. Just because I'm not dedicating my time to coming up with something new for a an example doesn't mean they won't or can't.... we're coming back to the part of the conversation where you're complaining just to complain.

Ambush you say???? Could it possibly ensare them in some form of elaborate plan to stop them from escaping too? If so what would you call such a thing? Please answer in picture or gif format.

10 minutes ago, Noosh said:

Ambush you say???? Could it possibly ensare them in some form of elaborate plan to stop them from escaping too? If so what would you call such a thing? Please answer in picture or gif format.

LaJ9Kmo.gif

On 1/2/2018 at 2:31 PM, Woobyluv said:

Just watched that scene again, the GR-75 didn't get to start the transition to hyperspace when Vader's ISD appears. Thinking about it though, there was nothing stopping the rest of the fleet from making the jump once Vader arrived.

All the other movies always made the jump to hyperspace be like a process before you could actually engage. In TLJ, it's like everyone is just tapping a button jumping into hyperspace instantly. I honestly don't think Rian Johnson has ever watched a Star Wars movie.