ST Hyperspace Use In The ST

The light speed skipping sequence confirmed a theory I had coming out of TLJ when I wrote this:

During the light speed skipping sequence Poe was regularly jumping into and out of environments that the Falcon would literally be colliding if there wasn’t a portal-like component to the act. In one sequence he’s surrounded by smoke stacks and punches it again and simply disappears from the situation. The key is that when he jumps back out he has to trust he can react in time and he showed he could.

This sequence along with the Holdo maneuver being referenced as rare help in combination to highlight that the Raddus was not fully at hyperspace 100% and thus were below it and traveling at high speed before the full jump. Since high speed collisions have happened before this simply means that it’s an extremely fast collision but technically below true hyperspace.

 

Also showed TIE fighters following in hyperspace which is based on the technology used in TLJ.

 

TROS says it's a "one in a million" shot and not a legitimate military tactic because it is virtually impossible.

TLJ depicted it as not illegitimate because Hux and the FO officers assumed it was about to be successful.

This is a retcon, plain and simple. The Holdo Manuever, as depicted in TLJ, is no longer canon.

 

Exactly so I don't know why people were claiming that this film retconned the Holdo maneuver.

 

Maybe it was my imagination, but it sure looked to me like the Star Destroyer shown above (Forest Moon) Endor -- as seen by the Ewoks -- had been downed by a Holdo maneuver. It had the same sort of debris trail, etc. It was a quick shot, though -- might be wrong.

 

What?

Think what you will about the credibility of such a move, but it's canon, it's right there.

 

The light speed skipping showed the Falcon in settings that if they had not entered hyperspace would have crashed, just going forward at the same trajectory at high speed. Thus, it confirmed the idea that true hyperspace is literally a jump, closer to entering a portal briefly and then exiting it again upon exit. Rather than just traveling at high speed in the physical space.

 

To be fair, the only time they ever showed a ship taking a long time to calculate the jump to lightspeed was in a New Hope. One could easily argue that lightspeed technology advanced significantly from that point, as it's 40 years later.

Either way, they had to do something to indicate that what Holdo did wasn't a valid military tactic in most situations, because otherwise it renders the entire idea of human pilots stupid in a war. You just load up hyperspace ships with droids and send them Holdo-ing into the enemy.

The Holdo maneuver was created for a cool visual/audio event in TLJ without anyone thinking about the ramifications. So, they had to work with it.

 

Yes, we were right !

 

My head canon has always been that it’s an almost impossible move, but the sheer size of Snoke’s ship made it more likely to succeed. That’s why the FO officers were panicking. Maybe it was a known vulnerability for them.

 

Close range and out of nowhere, too. Plus they knew how desperate the Resistance was, it was about the only conceivable way to ensure the shuttles get out of there.

Not exactly a tactic you use unless all else is lost.

 

Very cool thoughts. That being said, as to the military applications of such a move and why people don't use it more I find the one explanation that it was "one in a million" (or a billion, or a trillion) to be more than satisfactory for a science-fantasy space opera. I just assume that the period of time in which a ship can impact with a real-space object at ftl speeds is so small that not even a droid can reliably do it. 99.9repeatingdigits% of the time the ship will shoot past its target into hyperspace or impact at sublight speeds (which would presumably be ineffective or the would-be kamikaze pilot would just do that to begin with). Holdo pulled it off because she was insanely likely or, more likely, the Force willed it.

It's completely possible that the Supremacy crew was panicking because a very large object was speeding towards them without the time to shoot it down or take evasive actions. The Raddus was 3 km long; its very possible it could have done significant damage at sublight speed and that such a scenario is what the FO was concerned about before it turned 100x worse.

Funny, I noticed that too. I wrote it off as just regular destruction, though, seeing as the movie went out of its way earlier to suggest such a thing would not be happening.

 

I read your objection and raise you two massively larger Death Stars.

 

Also even the film hints at another Holdo maneuver. Look at the ship crashing over Endor it looks to be destroyed in a similar way.

 

Yeah, watching the lightspeed skipping, I couldn't put my finger on it or explain it as well as you did above, but in the theatre I couldn't help but think "Is this JJ's attempt to explain away the Holdo maneuver, and explain away the First Order being able to track through light speed?" It came across that way to me. At the same time, it was visually fascinating, and entertaining, so it had me.

 

Nothing can be "separate" from time and space, even if we take the weird physics laws of Star Wars. First of all, we are talking about FTL speeds, at which matter should not even be like matter all around us, but let's just say that Star Wars has already violated this, like every other sci-fi movie which portrays interstellar or even intergalactic travel.

Even so, this is merely an assumption. Star Wars gives us the star blur visual since 1977, to make it easy for the audience to understand that the ship is accelerating into FTL speeds. The idea that there is a realistic approach to the visual effect, will not hold under scrutiny, simply because the Millenium Falcon would have to basically completely be torn apart and turn into particles of energy much sooner than the point where we see the stars start to blur.

So while the blue-beam visual is indeed supposed to portray a different dimension, so to speak (not really, but for lack of a better word...), the assumption that while the ship is accelerating, it can destroy anything that it comes in contact with, is arbitrary, and not supported by internal or external logic.

This can be invalidated simply by standard introductory college Physics and Math. Let's make the assumption that the Star Destroyer appears 100 microseconds after the ships you mentioned have jumped to lightspeed. I am being generous. It's more like the tenth of a second, if that, but I will be one thousand times more lenient. Within 100 microseconds, an object will cover a distance of 30 kilometers (at least, but in film reality more like 50 or 100 or even 400 kilometers since we are talking about FTL speeds).

By applying very simple geometry, you will find that if let's say a ship were to collide with the Star Destroyer because it's in the same vector, it would have to be moving with an angle relative to the motion of the Destroyer smaller than 1 degree (much much smaller). Now, if you are making the claim that all these starships were perfecly aligned with the Star Destroyer with a margin of error less than 1 degree, I don't know what to say to that. This GIF does not really prove anything at all. The ships do not collide, because they have probable been displaced by thousands of kilometers before the Destroyer appears. Not because they are in the blue state. They are simply not on the same trajectory anymore, but instead they are so far displaced that not even the Death Star would catch them in its path by this point. The chance of any of those ships having the exact same vector (but in opposite direction) with the Destroyer, are close to zero.

The light speed skipping scene in TROS was just as world breaking as the Holdo manoeuver. The fact that JJ Abrams chose to include a completely nonsensical scene in his film just to impress with a cool visual, does not mean that RJ is absolved of doing the same. The chances of the Falcon dropping from hyperspace ALWAYS very close to a building or a structure and ALWAYS in the atmosphere of a planet that happened to be there are literally zero. I can prove it mathematically by using the vastness of space. I hope you are not making the claim that Poe's reflexes are faster than the speed of light. Blue portal or no blue portal, there is no correlation between all of those and the Holdo thing. Why would Poe not suddenly phase in the interior of a planet? Within a star, to be completely burnt into nothingness instantly? Within a black hole? In a super hot and magnetized nebula? How was he able to always find himself inside the atmosphere of a planet? All these questions don't have an answer. The answer is that he couldn't and shouldn't have. Much like the Holdo manoeveur shouldn't have happened. It was impossible.

Oh I am sure that this is what they will go with as an "explanation". That doesn't make in any more plausible, or any more realistic or believable. It still remains a world breaking mechanic, that can be headcanoned by those willing to do so, but should probably not be headcanoned by anyone who respects in-movie mechanics and physics. let alone real world physics.

 

If it's that easy to jump into atmosphere between skyscrapers, what was the big deal about Han jumping past the shields at SKB? So far I haven't been able to come up with any satisfactory explanation of how light-skipping can be consistent with what we know about hyperspace jumps. Poe made it seem just like dusting crops, and while he may be a good pilot, I don't think he's par with Han Solo.

 

Han's never plotted a jump to Starkiller Base before.

I think the VD states that the skips were all to precalculated locations.

p90:

"Poe has perfected hyperspace skipping, a dangerous series of precalculated lightspeed hops meant to throw off First Order tracking".

 

I have a theory, not based on anything, but what if you can only 'skip' to places that your ship has before? So maybe the Falcon has previously jumped to light speed to those particular co-ordinates, and they were just repeating (at random) old jumps that are still stored in the ship's computer? Might explain why they didn't end up going straight into a planet, or just to a random point in open space.

Edit: just read the above post, so it's not random, the locations are pre-calculated, but presumably the 'dangerous' aspect of it is that you only have a short time to react to your new location, then you're off again.

 

I could go with that, if this is what "precalculated" actually means in this context.

 

I just think it was by far the worst idea in the movie and a crazy, out of control attempt at humour (culminating in that gigantic slug saving the day). Just crazy, and silly. Something out of TPM, but with drugs involved.

 

So are we seriously going to debate which movies ridiculous hyperspace tech is the most silly? Newsflash - it's all silly. Debating whether it's realistic compared to the real world is dumb.

Now, if you want to say the ST was inconsistent with hyperspace tech as portrayed in the OT.... I can get on board with that (and IIRC the PT hyperspace tech was fairly consistent with the OT also). I think they took it too far. The Holdo thing was fine as it was portrayed as a hail mary/low chance of success desperation move... but making a big deal over the hyperspace tracking seems dumb since isn't that exactly how they found Yavin 4 in ANH? I was also fine with the Falcon doing the risky/low chance maneuver in TFA... but the super short transit times (which started in TFA) are a problem for me.

I personally prefer how Hyperspace was portrayed in the X-wing/Tie-Fighter series of games (which is largely consistent with the OT and IIRC the PT too). It didn't take nearly long enough to get anywhere in the ST..... I admit that annoyed me.

Rogue One on the other hand was pretty consistent with the OT... ships couldn't just immediately pop into hyperspace (which allowed vader to stop quite a few rebels from escaping).

 

I just think it's useless to try and make sense of hyperspace maneuvers in the Disney films. They just go more and more over-the-top insane with every movie and it's clear they just straight-up don't care and will use hyperspace for whatever cool visual they want for the day.

 

Creepy simple words. Gotta love Vader.