Mara Jade is 48?!?!

Well, Madonna had a son at 42.

Well, Madonna had a son at 42.

I think the reason humans in the GFFA don't age as much is because they spend alot of time travelling at speeds around or faster than light.

How Time Slows Down

As the speed of any object increases, its properties, as measured by an observer at rest, change. Its mass increases, its length in the direction of travel decreases and time slows down. At ordinary Earthbound speeds, even those of a jet plane, the changes are infinitesimal.

At very high speeds, however, the changes become extremely important. An astronaut travelling at 90 per cent of the speed of light, for instance, would not feel any different from his twin on Earth. But the mass of his spacecraft would be more than double, its length would be less than half and a clock on board would take an hour to record 25 minutes because time had slowed - and he would therefore be ageing at less than half the speed of his brother.

(source: http://www.geocities.com/Axiom43/relativity.html)

Well, Madonna had a son at 42.

Yes, but people still base their "age" on Coruscant Standard time, and they measure that no matter where they are, even on ships, in hyperspace, and even other planets. Sometimes they have to change their sleep cycles, but time measurement is still the same for most citizens ( aside from the local planetary populace. )

<<
In the EU novels, it seems that Luke's age is never given. It only seems to be resource books that give his age as 18. Even the movies didn't give Luke's age.
>>

Children of the Jedi says that Luke was 21 as of ESB, which is of course 3 years after ANH. That is the main one that comes to mind.

Yet looking to both the novels to ANH and ESB, we can see he wasn't.

Like I said, you can't trust novelizations in some cases. Luke was 20, Leia was 16, Hobbie and Veers died, Luke flew with Blue Squadron, Owen was Obi-Wan's brother...

Dang those Whills and their faulty book keeping.

What I meant to say, was that with Mara travelling around at light speed all the time, even though she's 42, her body would be closer to that of a 30-35 year old-a reasonable child bearing age.

And the scientific(sp)proof is what??
It's a SW film, it's Sci Fic, anything can happen, and probably will.

Sturm...
"She could be all of the official printed ages..."

It's her clone physiology.

Slimybug...
"Mara is 46 and Luke is 44 in rebirth, they dont have longer lifespans, and time doesnt pass quicker."

Several inaccuracies.

1. Mara's Age: At Rebirth, Mara is two years older than Luke. At Dark Force Rising, Mara is two years younger than Luke. Mara's age is dynamic as time passes.

2. Humans in GFFA on average have longer lifespans than humans here.

3. The measurement of time is vastly different. In GFFA, there are 60 standard seconds in a standard hour. Here, there are 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute.

Maybe she is two years older, but like most older mothers, lie about her age

Hum... Genghis... You really think it's intended ? Or are you just playing with an obvious mistake ?

As I remember the TTT sourcebooks, either the individual ones or the compilation, gave her an official age at the time of TTT, anyone know what it was?

Okay, just so you all know, Mara IS two years older than Luke. In Kathy Tyers' BP thread she states --"I had email from Sue at Lucasfilm today, and she confirmed that Mara is two years OLDER than Luke. That's the official word."

For an interesting twist on the series, Mara should actually be the lost daughter of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The daughter was taken, like all Jedi children, but the Emperor knew that it was Kenobi's daughter and took her to raise as his own personal warrior. During the time of the Imperial rising, Obi-Wan always thought of Mara as being dead and turns his attention to Luke and Leia.

i get the felling that winter is obi-wans daughter.

PrinceXizor...
"Hum... Genghis... You really think it's intended ? Or are you just playing with an obvious mistake ?"

My opinion is irrelevent, since it's not official. (However, for the record, I think it was simply a typo) I think that as fans, we don't have the authority to arbitrarily label something a mistake.

After all, I consider many existing things like Mara Jade and the Hand of Thrawn Duology to be mistakes. But that is irrelevent, since officially, they "exist."

If it's a mistake, it'll be retracted or corrected at some point. The "mistake" regarding time-keeping also endured through several editions/revisions.

We can make all sorts of claims that editors may have missed something or there's a typo. However, as it stands currently, a standard hour is equal to standard 60 seconds - whether they intended it to be or not.

What book was that mistake in?

mj...

The only real place that a clear, absolute, in-depth definition of time-keeping has been given - the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2nd Ed. It also appeared in the later Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2nd Ed., Revised and Expanded.

That's where absolute time - called Galactic Standard Time - was defined to follow the time-keeping of Coruscant, the galactic capitol. In Galactic Standard Time, there are 60 Galactic Standard Seconds in a Galactic Standard Hour. That's not to say minutes don't exist, they do. However, they are not a standard unit of measure.

One could argue that it's a mistake, but we also have to note that the lengths of weeks aren't the same, the lengths of months aren't the same, and the length of a Galactic Standard Year and an Earth year also aren't the same.

So, if the length of time for everything else is different, why would one assume that the length of time for an hour is the same.

It also could be a reason why GFFA humans live longer in GFFA years than earth humans do in earth years, since time is measured quicker in the GFFA.

In the Black Fleet crisis Luke looks back through his life and he thinks to himself that it is hard to remember everything at the age of 32. Now the black fleet crisis is set 12 years after Return Of The Jedi and I think Luke was 20 or 21 in Return of the jedi so that makes him around the age of...What a minute but it says in the front of the Njo books that 4 years was the number of years between A new Hope and Return of the jedi making Luke 17 IN A NEW HOPE.

Oh thats just Great!...(voice drips with sarcasm)

But if you look at the chrono on the front of a Njo book, and totally ignore the Black Fleet crisis, it says that Return Of The Jedi takes place 4 years after A new hope making Luke 22. SO if you calculate 18 + 25 (Vecter Prime) that makes Luke 43 or 42 in Vecter Prime.

Please don't kill me I know my maths is not that good but this age business is so messed up!

Um, each book does not take place exactly on New Years, Simone. There's many months to consider.

<<Sturm...
"She could be all of the official printed ages..."

It's her clone physiology. >>

Could be. But that's conjecture.

<<Several inaccuracies.

1. Mara's Age: At Rebirth, Mara is two years older than Luke. At Dark Force Rising, Mara is two years younger than Luke. Mara's age is dynamic as time passes.
>>

Could be going by homeworld time versus Coruscant Standard, as per my Luke and Leia post I just made.

<<2. Humans in GFFA on average have longer lifespans than humans here. >>

Qui-Gon is a good example, as he was 60 when he died. Although he was probably using the Force to stay more healthy...

<<3. The measurement of time is vastly different. In GFFA, there are 60 standard seconds in a standard hour. Here, there are 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute. >>

Ghengis! It's a TYPO. Don't be so technical!

<<My opinion is irrelevent, since it's not official. (However, for the record, I think it was simply a typo) I think that as fans, we don't have the authority to arbitrarily label something a mistake. >>

Come on. If someone mispells Corellian or Sullustan ( as I have seen Rusch and Allston do in TNR and Iron Fist ) then I can believe that "60 seconds in an hour" is surely a typo. If someone is that picky about it, you'd have to reason that Correlians and Sullustians are different species...

Sturm...

There's things (whole books even) that I might consider to be typos, misspellings and other errors that others may not. Same goes for another fan. It's not up to us to arbitrarily decide what is and isn't an error. If it's an error, it'll get retracted, clarified or otherwise corrected.

Until that time, Galactic Standard Time (GST) is just that, the galactic standard as defined by them. They've defined it to be something rather strange, I admit - but seconds and hours aren't the only differences - weeks, months and even years are different between Earth and GST. So, with everything else being different, why would one think that hours for some reason would be the same?

what did the official TTT sourcebooks say?

How's this: let's just say they're the same age and get over with it. None of this two years +/- poodoo, okay.