ST Hyperspace Use In The ST

In future movies there should definitely be some Hyperspace flights that feel like they take some time.
Everything else feels like teleportation and makes the galaxy smaller.

 

If you meant her act was legal, since there are no specific laws of combat that forbid suicide attacks against legitimate military targets (at least as they are understood here on this planet), that would be true.

However, since this is Star Wars, where good guys are good and villains are not, the morality of her act is far more important than its legality and any variant of suicide is an incredibly complex moral issue.

George Lucas spent some three decades tinkering with the Greedo scene in an attempt to make it indisputably clear that Han's action was self defense.

Do you think anyone that fastidious about the morality of his story would have put a suicide attack in one of his Star Wars movies?

This is an appeal to an authority I do not recognize. As intention is all important in determining suicide and the evidence presented in the film can not be used to definitively determine his action was deliberate, it can not be called suicide. Furthermore, death from enemy action is not suicide, it's combat. Enemy action causes one to fail the coercion test cited above.

The thing you continually miss, or just seek to not to engage, is that those are all choices made by the film maker. Johnson could have given them more fuel, better shields, a stronger hull or any other number of possible gimmicks.

Why did he choose this path for this character?

Perhaps it is not quite obvious but, when I say she should have read it, I mean Rian Johnson since he is the one that created her, put her in that situation and had her choose that final action.

 

There was nothing "amoral" about her act to begin with, and while sucide is complex morally, the movie did not present her a woman who wanted to die or wanted to kill herself but rather was sacraficing herself to save her comrades. In our world what she did would considered heroic and not morally prolematic at all, and would probobly be grounds for a posthumous Medel of Honor if she were an American servicewoman (as was the case with Baldamero Lopez's sacrafice at Inchon)

For no reason, since such a thing was already perfect obvius from the start

Well, he did put one in ROTJ, but even if you want to dimiss that on the grounds that the film made it unclear, their is also allowed at least to occur in TCW, a show he was heavily involved and kept a close eye on*.

*There is also ESB, which has Hobbie ram General Veer's walker; this is in the script and the novel (and is canon through the latter) and is only not in the film becuse the scene was unfinished and was cut for time.

You opinion, and the information in the film, does not change the in-universe canon sequence of events - Crynyd chose to intentionally commit sucide. The decision to turn his last moments into a sucide attack was his choice (as we're give no reason to think he could'nt, or was otherwise unable to, bail from the fighter)

Sucide attacks, and even actual terrorism, are things that the "good guys" do in SW all the time. It dos'nt somehow break any "rules" of the universe or anything

Who cares? Like, why is the fact that he did such a big deal to you?

He could have done those things but he did'nt. Why is it such an issue that he chose to present the attack as a heroic sacrafice? There is a huge differance between a terrorist blowing up a civilian building with a vest of C4 and a person in a war killing a group of enemy soldiers at the cost of his/her own life in order to save the lives of their comrades.

No offense, but this is a weird thing to get hung up over.

 

face palm....... that one went right over your head

getting back on topic here. Why don't you explain what Holdo could have done to save them?

 

"I read your book, you magnificent bantha fodder!"

 

The funny thing about that is that the movie intends said book to be Tank Attacks (as they show Patton has it earlier in the film), a book that Rommel never actually got around to writing, rather then Infantry Attacks, a book he had written and Patton had (reportedly) read.

 

Quite apparently, it was not perfectly obvious to George Lucas. Preemptive attacks are, just like suicide, always morally problematic. Because the prohibition on killing is really high, the burden of proof for a preemptive attack is equally really high. Just because someone is waving around a blaster and saying mean things doesn't mean they are 100% certainly going to pull the trigger. The blaster might not even be loaded; it may just be posturing. Lucas wanted to remove that grey, make it indisputably clear Greedo had the motivation and capability of killing Han. Then, there is no doubt Han acted in self defense.

But, this isn't our world. It's Star Wars - a simple fairy tale about good and evil. As the Greedo example shows, moral rules are far more stringently enforced in the GFFA. No matter how hard you try to find examples, the truth is that prior to TLJ, suicide did not exist in Star Wars.

Hyper speed ramming doesn't just break an in-universe Star Wars mechanic, it's a not so subtle attempt at breaking Star Wars.

Rian Johnson's Holdo suicide attack subverts one of the most basic premises of Star Wars - there is always hope. Suicide is the death of hope. That's why it didn't and shouldn't exist in Star Wars.

This isn't a case where one has to go to a novel or some other source to infer intent. She doesn't die to a coercive enemy action that forces a split second decision to jump on a grenade. She's not on fire and spinning out of control. She coolly and calmly executes the act that takes her own life.

It represent the moral philosophy of a middle school nihilist who wants you to believe he doesn't believe any hill is worth dying on. He's laughing at you as you try to twist her very clear suicidal action into a heroic act.

As you're not perturbed by hyper space ramming, you shouldn't have an issue with any gimmick I create. How about these:

- as the Raddus was a Mon Calamari ship, we could say it was built to withstand the pressure of great ocean depths, it's hull many times stronger and able to withstand more punishment than any other ship. We could even retcon it so that the Empire had to use the DS2 laser on those ships at Endor.

- since some sources indicate the Raddus was highly automated, we could say that includes its damage control systems. While getting bombarded, Holdo could direct scores of astromechs to maintain maneuvering.

- insert your idea here

Pick one, pick all. It doesn't matter. What matters is that Holdo go down fighting the ship. That she, just like the soldiers in the trenches on Hoth, fight a last ditch holding action for as long as possible. Because, as the First Order is going to show up on Crait with overwhelming force regardless, all those Resistance escape ships immediately need is time. Instead of going out as a punk whose flawed tactical sense leads her to conclude that her best course of action is suicide, she fights the good fight and goes out like a Star Wars hero.

 

Do you really think anyone on Tatooine would have bothered to arrest Han for what he did, let alone even call "the authorities." (I doubt the Imperials would even care, since they were only there looking for the droids - and the actual ruler of the planet did'nt give to ***** about Greedo dying, let alone know who shot first)

Hell, Han's a smugger and a criminal. Why would he even care about the "morals" of shooting some Bounty Hunter who had stright-up annouched he was going to kill him.

We know in canon he's not above shooting first preemptively, becuse even if ingore Solo we still have later in ANH when he guns down an Imperial officer before that guy can even draw his gun.

No...they are'nt?

If anything, all the evidance indicates that moral codes and norms are exactly the same in their world as in ours.

Hardcase commits sucide to destroy a CIS supply ship in TCW, and the Father also commits sucide as part of the effort to stop the Son (though given the nature of his existance and the fact that the Daughter is alive agian by the time of Rebels, he probobly got better). A Death Watch agent who tries to carry out a terrorist attack (also in TCW) commits sucide to avoid capture, and the Imperial admiral who commands the ISD Harbinger contempaltes killing himself rather then facing Vader wrath when the Alliance captures his ship. The Grand Inquisitor also commits sucide to escape the same fate, as does Commadore Idel to avoid the wrath of the Emperor. And then, of course, there's Crynyd.

Those are all confirmed sucides that occured in canon works realeased/published prior to TLJ. Three of which occured in a project GW was closely involved in.

Holdo's death did the opposite of kill hope - it allowed it to survive. If she had'nt done what she did none of the resistance members would be alive for Luke to save later.

You do know theirs a difference between a sacrifical act and deliberate sucide done with the sole intention of killing oneself, right?

Holdo was'nt a person taking a gun and shooting herself in the head becuse she was depressed, she was a soldier who sacraficed her life to save those of her comrades. That's heroism of the highest order.

If you were in her situation, and you could'nt alter the realitive of the universe to twist what you think it should be, and were faced with the same choice, what would you have done? Remember, you have no weapons and your sheilds are failing, so if you put yourself between the transports and the Supremacy the latter ship will just blow right through you and go right back to slaughtering your comrades.

 

Some First Order TIE Fighters shot into hyperspace on the series finale of Star Wars Resistance and apparently the FO TIE's can use hyperspace as far back as TFA (Which is why Poe and Finn try to escape in one) so that at least answers the question of how the TIEs were jumping into hyperspace along with the Falcon in TROS.

 

Uhh, what?

Greedo's a ruthless mercenary. Han knows the guy, personally. He knows what he does for a living.

Greedo's there to either take him back to Jabba so the slug-man can get paid, or as a consolation prize get to gun him down. It's the Wild West, no cops around to stop him. Of course pre-emptive action is justified in that context, nothing morally-unsound about it. Different if it's just some random dude sitting at the table and you don't know the intentions, but that's not the case here. Kill or be killed. You'd be an idiot to wait until Greedo's pulled the trigger already, that's not how life works, Earth or the GFFA alike.

 

no i'm not.

So it's like you are contradicting yourself here. You are saying it is wrong because Holdo sacrifcied herself but are ok with the soldiers in the trenches sacrificing themselves.


There is literally no difference between Holdo and what the soldiers int he trenches did. It wasn't a flawed tactical move it worked. It bought them the most time. Her only chance for protecting those ships was to disable the FO ships which she did. Even if her ship could take 100 times more damage it wouldn't have helped as we saw the FO was firing on the transports and ignoring her.

Her ship isn't big enough to block the firing range of the FO.

So tell me what's the differnece between hyperspace raming and dying or being destroyed by the FO by blocking incoming fire?

 

I think hyperspace use in the st era is completely effed. I'm not even talking about just hyperspace ramming, which was a bad idea that went against established lore. In tfa and RO (which is one of my favorite sw movies), we see ships entering and exiting hyperspace in atmosphere. The irony is that the novels do not depict this and acknowledge the previously established rule where gravity wells caused by planets, prevent such an action. The rules of hyperspace are especially important when delving into "wild space" and the unknown regions. The ridiculous skipping scene in TROS, was the pinnacle of this debacle. The maw in front of exogol, was a booming signal that the writers do not understand a basic component of the universe they're writing for. Unknown space is exactly that. They do not have established hyperspace lanes. This means that travelling to the unknown regions is more likely to end with you flying through a supernova or a gravity well. Hyperspace travel was never just a simple jump. More common is several jumps with course recalculation in between. Fly too close to a planet and you'll be pulled back into normal space. Jump recklessly and you may end up being torn apart in the core of a gas giant or the event horizon of a singularity.

 

Both Han and Cassian made atmospheric hyperspace jumps but they aren't really presented as commonplace, Han and Chewie are freakin' Han and Chewie so I buy they can do it (and they still crashed anyway). Cassian was in a dire situation so he just went for it, Poe's hyperspace skipping made the whole Falcon set on fire, so there's consequences and it's rare but they aren't exactly hyperspace jumping from atmosphere very commonly.

 

It was always established in earlier canon that hyperspace and gravity wells were mutually exclusive. You had to get far enough away from a planet to make the jump. Scenes in the new films just give fans more work to do recalibrating the rules as they understand them. The thing is that the second trick in TFA where they got past the shields was a reverse of what Han Solo did in Dark Empire, where it bothered me all those years ago that they mentioned "risk of atmospheric burn" but didn't seem to care about the gravity well.

Well, as they say.. Oh well. This is the thing that bothers me about lightspeed skipping, not the coordintes thing because according to outside source materials, the trick involves precoded coordinates.

My assumption regarding Exegol has been that wayfinders are needed because the route is complicated and changes over time, So Rey could transmit a safe lane she found using the wayfinder but it might not be valid anymore ten years later, or even one year. It only worked because they followed her almost immediately.

 

What elements of prior-established lore actually state such a thing is impossible?

Which is clearly not a common thing, and in both cases was done during times of desperation.

Ships jump into (and out of) hyperspace in the vacinity of planets all the time. In all likelyhood gravity well generators create phantom gravity wells of very specific intenisity that are in exteremly close vacinity to the target, rather then *just* gravity wells.

Poe was not jumping to unknown destinations, he was cycaling through pre-set coordinates*. As for Exegol, they clearly knew how to get to the planet once they figured out were it was. It not like they just jumped blindly around the UR until they chanced upon it, they knew percisely where to go.

*the danger likely comes from not fully accounting for any other variables (the "percise caculations" Han mentioned in ANH) as well as stress on the ship from shutting down and restarting the hyperdrive without giving it time to "cool down."

It is when you have a clear path.

But that aside, whose to say the trip to Exegol did'nt involve dropping out to adjust course?

 

Star wars established long ago that hyperspace exists outside of normal space. That calculations needed before making a jump aren't so that you don't crash into an asteroid field or a fleet of ships. Its to avoid things that'll pull you back into normal space and likely kill you. It was exactly the sort of thing that made the unknown regions, "unknown".

Ships jump in and out of hyperspace near a planet, but never in direct orbit, or in atmosphere. Even if they tried to exit hyperspace in atmosphere, the planet's gravity would pull them out far too early.


You're missing my point. Its not about how common or uncommon it was. Previous lore established it as impossible due to the gravity well created by planets. Even star destroyers had to move a certain distance from a planet before jumping to lightspeed. Its also why the falcon didn't just jump to lightspeed while it was directly over mos isley. Its why Qui Gon and the gang didn't just jump to lightspeed right out of the captal city's hanger on naboo. Its also why the rebel transports didn't just jump to lightspeed while they were still in atmosphere on Hoth. They were all in desperate situations. They didn't do that because they couldn't.

Everything in space is always moving. Its why space travel is complicated even in the real world. One movie in the DT establishes that hyperspace travel turns you into a bullet, while the very next film depicts the falcon materializing in the middle of some spike field, then some weird mirrored city. Ignoring established lore has made it all wacky and silly.

Again, traveling through space is never just "a clear path". The computer has to set a course to account for the position of planets, black holes, super novas, etc in order to have a safe jump that'll take you closest to your intended destination. There were old comics where explorers worked to established hyperspace lanes. It was one such group of explorers that accidentally found the sith homeworld. This event allowed the sith to return to known space and kick start the jedi sith war.

 

Okay, but the Raddus was'nt in the Unknown Regions. It was in charted space. And it was'nt in hyperspace, it was accelerating into hyperspace.

We see a ship enter hyperspace in-atmo for the first time in TCW, which occured prior to the Disney buyout and escaped the canon reset - so hyperspace jumps being possible within a gravity well have been part of the established lore for the new canon since the very begining and predates the re-introduction of the whole gravity well thing (which was never actually established in the OT or PT - all that was established their was that you need percise coordinates to jump into hyperspace without running the risk of an accident).

Again, its more likley that its gravity wells of specific size and intensity in very close proximity to the ships that cuase them to get pulled out, not all gravity wells in general.

Agian, see above. Being able to jump into hyperspace while within a gravity well has been part of the lore since the start of the new canon.

It's not impossible. Just dangerous.

Far less desperate then about to be consumed by an exploding planet or needing to pull of a specific manuver to bypass a planets shield, but that's besides the point.

Hav'nt you heard? Sir Isaac Newton is deadliest son of a' bitch in space.

Well, what do you think happens one object propellels itself at a high velocity towards anouther object?

In most cases we're shown hyperspace trips as being one uniterrupted jump. This is not always the case, of course, but when using charted hyperspace routes it seems to be.

Think of it as the difference between driving unipeded along the I-95 vs having to turn and weave down a network of backwoods dirt roads somewhere up in the Appalachian hills.

Yes. There were. Old comics that are no longer canon.

(not to mention the fact that in that comic they discovered Korriban by making one long, uniterrupted jump, at random, across most of the galaxy and did'nt end up hitting anything)

 

INDEED!

Han Solo talked about you needed the computer to make sure you do not run into a star, or something that can destroy the ship. Now, get in the ship and punch it. If you go old school, you need a dialog with the characters that are not in a stressful conflict with others wanting to kill you.

 

Are we using "previous lore" to mean "old EU"?

I'm not aware of these rules about gravity wells in actual canon. Maybe it came up in passing once in TCW, but not enough to build fake physics around.

 

The Tarkin novel (and then Rebels) reinroducted Interdictors into canon, so there's that. But even so, as I've mentioned TCW had an atomosphetic hyperjump.

As for the EU, even they had hyperspace ramming.

 

The interdictors was what I was remembering.

Yeah, not to beat a dead horse, but the EU wasn't really canon. I don't understand the b***hurt that people feel over it. It didn't really change when Disney bought it. It's not canon in the REAL story people reserve the right to ignore it completely or contradict it. It was glorified fanfiction, approved of by LFL in order to not have trademark infringement and to act as advertising for the brand.

Had Lucas grabbed the reins of the ST and started telling backstory in his movies and shows, the EU would have gotten the same treatment.

Just ask him if Luke ever got married if you want to know if the EU was ever canon.

 

Lucas had control over the company that classafied the EU as canon - he can say it did'nt matter to his stories all he wants, but he never put his foot down and told them to stop branding it as canon (less tier canon then the films, but still canon) so in the end what he was saying conflicted with policies he himself condoned.

That being said, is'nt really the place for this, and I don't think either of use wants to derail a thread about hyperspace usage with discussions on wether or not Mara Jade actually existed and the like. I mean, I don't, at least.

 

But saying it's a "lower class of canon" and treating it like canon are different things. I agree, the canon tiering system is to blame, the reality is that there was real canon and not real canon. The films + TCW was it at the time. The attempt to placate the convoluted mess of stories and takes on the story outside of the film was noble but doomed.

Saying that something is canon that can be contradicted or ignored or overwritten is an oxymoron. It can't be both. It wasn't really canon but was given a moniker to keep people happy and make money.

 

That's all neither here nor there, though - whatever ones views are on the realtionship between the films and the old EU and the legitimacy of the old canon system, the events were discussing here are all related to current Star Wars, where the current canon system leaves no room for interpetation otherwise on the validity of the non-film works.

 

I agree, it's a side note about the ongoing heartburn people seem to have with letting things that never really existed not exist, ie rules of hyperspace. We see it here - it's hard to accept actaul canon because people don't let go of non-canon that was referred to as canon.

Anyway, I'll drag myself back on topic.

I don't like hyperspace skipping. I think we could have explained that hyperspace tracking is novel, you can't jam it into a small ship and requires a large destroyer or bigger. If you can outrun the big ship easily, you can avoid the fact that you'll be tracked in a jump or two - you have to be in real space in the proximity of the big ship with the tracker for it to work (or something). Instead TROS went along with hyperspace tracking as the new norm and it changes the space battle dynamic forever.

It dealt with the Holdo maneuver in a way smarter way....even if the dialog was on the nose and directed at the audience.