• wjrii@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    121
    ·
    8 months ago

    Ahh, but in Star Wars, “Light Speed” is exactly as fast as the plot demands. Checkmate, science dorks!

    • essell@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      63
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      In Starwars they travel through hyperspace, hitting light speed is how you get into it!

      • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        45
        ·
        8 months ago

        I just assumed light speed was a colloquialism for hyperdrive.

        At any rate, hyperdrive blows warp out of the water in raw speed. A trip across the galaxy is just a few days. The downside is that you’re pretty much limited to already charted safe routes unless you want to test your luck with potential ship-killing hazards that can’t be detected before hitting them.

        • Furbag@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          8 months ago

          It’s both. I think “jumping to lightspeed” is an in-universe misnomer for jumping to Hyperspace. Han Solo misuses the terminology the first time we’re introduced to the concept (so does Kenobi, for that matter), but in that same scene he does make a distinction between lightspeed and hyperspace. The ship still needs to accelerate to something very close to light speed to slip into the parallel hyperspace dimension, so it kinda tracks between the two concepts.

          • frezik@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            8 months ago

            Star Wars tech manuals say it’s not a misnomer. They actually do have to hit lightspeed before entering hyperspace.

            I assume this is from the same people who said TIE Fighter “wings” are solar panels.

            • Furbag@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              7 months ago

              Hmm, I suppose you’re right. I don’t know why sci-fi purists are okay with that explanation when logically nothing can move faster than the speed of light. I’ve seen more debate over whether a blaster is a laser weapon or a plasma weapon. I guess they had a hard time reconciling the line from Han about how the Falcon does “Point five past light speed”. At this point, I’ve accepted that hyperspace and FTL travel in Star Wars is basically just the wild west and nobody is trying to clarify how any of it actually works, they just want to have cool scenes.

        • rwhitisissle@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          8 months ago

          You also can’t leave or enter the galaxy Star Wars takes place in, except for a small perforation called Vector Prime. There’s a galactic barrier in place that causes hyperspace to just kinda…stop working.

            • frezik@midwest.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              8 months ago

              It’s Legends, mind you. New canon is more or less the same, but it’s a calculation problem rather than a specific gateway out.

          • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            8 months ago

            That makes it consistent with Trek because TOS has a galactic barrier.

            Maybe they’re the same universe. After all StarWars is a galaxy far far away.

        • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          8 months ago

          But nothing beats Discovery’s mushroom drive (incidentally that’s also what the writers had before writing it).

        • Lost_Faith@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          8 months ago

          Wanna make your own hyper space jump not using hyper space lanes? Bring one of the talented young ladies of Thrawns species, you will be fine until said young lady is no longer young

    • CileTheSane
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      “Light Speed” is exactly as fast as the plot demands

      Considering the speed of light is relative depending on your perspective, that actually seems appropriate somehow.