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[FFG] WEG SW:The RPG 30th Anniversary Edition!
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Whill
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 6:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Red 331 wrote:
Here's some interesting info from Sterling Hershey:
https://www.sterlinghershey.com/blog/2017/8/23/star-wars-wednesday-gen-con-50

"The new version is not a straight copy of the original, it is a recreation. This was due to necessity - the original was done in 1980s technology and mostly unavailable. They are trying to be as true to the original as possible. FFG worked with the late Stewart Wieck, who owned the current incarnation of WEG, and just recently passed away."

Thanks. That makes perfect sense. And that seems to also answer the question of whether the current owners of WEG were involved in this anniversary edition.
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 02, 2017 1:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This thread has inspired me to comb through the Star Wars Sourcebook, as I find it intriguing reading, even if I'm not playing that particular game. It's just cool stuff about the Star Wars universe.

I read the first chapter on General Spacecraft Systems. It covers Hyperdrives and Sublight Drives, Armament and Shields, Sensors, Life Support, and Escape Equipment.

In between the lines, I think I've found a new theory about the very old question: How did Han take the Millennium Falcon from the Anoat Asteroid Belt to a completely different star system when the Falcon made that trip to Bespin in The Empire Strikes Back?

The prevailing theory has been attributed to the WEG D6 game, and that is via backup hyperdrives. Many vessels in the D6 game have backup drives that are much slower than their main drive.

I've always had a problem with that explanation because we never once hear of a backup in the films. The two big instances of hyperdrive failure happen with the Falcon in TESB, and with the Royal Naboo Starship (with the leaking hyperdrive) in The Phantom Menace.

Neither scene mentions a backup hyperdrive. If the Falcon had one, then the choices wouldn't be so narrow for Han and company. So, they take longer to get where they are going--they wouldn't have to go to Bespin by necessity if the Falcon had a back up.

The same goes for the Naboo starship. Sure, there's a bigger time crunch to get a move on, because the Trade Federation has seized control of Naboo (at least the human population). But there's no way that Qui-Gon and the Queen would have taken so long on Tattooine, or even went to that dust ball planet--not to mention staying a day to watch a pod race--if the Naboo ship had a backup and could have gone somewhere else. Remember, the Queen's guardsman didn't want to go to Naboo because it was controlled by the Hutts, "And the Hutts are gangsters!"

As many good things that were created in the WEG game and still remain true to the universe, I don't think the backup hyperdrive is something that has really "stuck".





In reading the sections about the starship drives in the Star Wars Sourcebook, though, I think I've found an alternative application of reason...that makes sense.

There are three basic types of drives used in the Star Wars universe. The first is repulsorlift technology. This can only operate within a gravity field, and this is what is used to power landspeeders, snowspeeders, and even skyhoppers.

The second basic type of drive is a sublight drive, and there are several types of drive in this category that are in use: solid chemical rocket boosters, atomic drives, light sails, ramjets, etc. But, by far the most popular is the Hoersch-Kessel ion engine that was brought to this part of the galaxy several hundreds of years ago by alien merchants. "...Today, almost all of the major ship manufacturers put Hoersch-Kessel style motors into their vessels."

Sublight drives produce more thrust than repulsorlift engines. H-K drives are extremely efficient and extremely powerful. H-K drives move ships through space using a fusion reaction which breaks down fuel into charged particles. The resulting energy hurls from the vessel, providing thrust.





But, none of these types of drives will take the ship from one star system to another. The trip between two star systems should take about five years, on average, if traveling at the speed of light! A sublight vessel would need a colony ship!

The third type of drive is the Hyperdrive, which takes the ship out of normal space and allows it to travel in another dimension--hyperspace. Distances that takes years to travel at light speed in normal space only takes minutes or hours in hyperspace.

So, we're back to the question. With the hyperdrive down, how did the Falcon move from one star system to another? How did Han, Leia, and Chewie get from the Anoat system to the Bespin system in a fairly short period of time when the hyperdrive was down?

I think the answer lies in the description of the Hyperdrive in the Star Wars Sourcebook.





According to the Sourcebook, Hyperspace can only be entered at faster than light speeds. That's way, in the films, we see the ships zip off into nothingness. They have to make lightspeed before entering Hyperspace.

How do they do that?

Well, it's clear that there are only three types of drive in use in the Star Wars universe: Repulsorlift Technology, Sublight Drives, and Hyper-Drives.

What gets them to lightspeed? Past lightspeed? Another, not mentioned drive? No.

What I am suggesting is that the Hyperdrive must operate on two levels. First, the Hyperdrive is responsible for taking the ship past lightspeed so that it can enter hyperspace. THEN a second stage of the hyperdrive engages to govern the ship during it journey through hyperspace.





In Han's situation, what if the Hyperdrive wouldn't engage because the drive was not working properly as a whole, but part of the drive still worked. Like only being able to receive AM stations on your AM/FM radio, only the hyperdrive part of the engine was faulty. But, the part of the drive that got the ship to lightspeed and beyond still worked.

Lightspeed, and even beyond lightspeed, is still a lot slower than what the hyperdrive does. The Hyperdrive can get a ship across the galaxy in a matter of hours, according to a scene in The Empire Strikes Back. Therefore, the Hyperdrive means Hyper-light speed. At just the speed of light, it takes an average (as I said above) of five years to travel to the nearest star. Beyond light speed can get you there faster.

How long was Han, Leia, and Chewie on the trip? We don't know. We have to gauge by the time we see Luke training on Degobah. Maybe it takes them a few days? Maybe it takes them a week or so? That seems to fit the story.





So, I propose that, while the hyperdrive was not working at all, the part of the hyperdrive system that propelled the ship past light speed (so that the hyperdrive could take over once the ship had entered hyperspace), was working, and that's how Han, Leia, and Chewie got to Bespin.
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 02, 2017 6:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Brilliant!
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 03, 2017 3:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
So, I propose that, while the hyperdrive was not working at all, the part of the hyperdrive system that propelled the ship past light speed (so that the hyperdrive could take over once the ship had entered hyperspace), was working, and that's how Han, Leia, and Chewie got to Bespin.

But that's really just semantics. Whether the "back-up hyperdrive" is a separate drive or one aspect of a single hyperdrive doesn't really change how it works. I personally don't feel that distinction is really necessary.

And "past light speed" is ludicrous speed and plaid. You seem to be considering lightspeed to be exactly the speed of light, but on the scale of the galaxy, that is way too slow for even damaged hyperdrives. The closest star system to ours is such a distance that it takes light over 4 years to travel between then. In Star Wars, hyperdrives only ever propel the ship to lightspeed, which actually refers to velocities many times faster than the speed of light. It seems self-evident that "lightspeed" is short for faster-than-light-speed. By the time of the films they have been traveling at FTL velocities for thousands of years.

Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
How did Han take the Millennium Falcon from the Anoat Asteroid Belt to a completely different star system when the Falcon made that trip to Bespin in The Empire Strikes Back?

The prevailing theory has been attributed to the WEG D6 game, and that is via backup hyperdrives. Many vessels in the D6 game have backup drives that are much slower than their main drive.

I've always had a problem with that explanation because we never once hear of a backup in the films.

The game has quite a lot of things not mentioned in the films. It seems strange to me that this one mechanism not being explicit in the films is the basis for taking an issue with WEG's hyperdrive back-up.

Quote:
Where are we?
Anoat System.
The Anoat system? There's not much there.

Since Leia says "there" and earlier dialogue establishes that Hoth is in the Hoth system, that tells me that they were not in the Anoat system at the time, so I interpret her question to really mean, What's nearby? When Han says that Bespin is pretty far, it seems to me that is in reference to the limited range they now have due to the back-up (or damaged) hyperdrive. Back-up hyperdrives have a limited range. It could be that Naboo just didn't have any Trade Federation-free options in range.
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 03, 2017 10:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
But that's really just semantics. Whether the "back-up hyperdrive" is a separate drive or one aspect of a single hyperdrive doesn't really change how it works. I personally don't feel that distinction is really necessary.


I made the point above, though, that a backup hyperdrive is way too fast to put the characters in jeopardy in The Empire Strikes Back.

But going somewhere around 32 times the speed of light will get the Falcon from Anoat to Bespin in about 2 months.

2 months is the maximum time the Falcon had due to its consumables.

So, my theory does hold on those grounds.





Quote:
Since Leia says "there" and earlier dialogue establishes that Hoth is in the Hoth system, that tells me that they were not in the Anoat system at the time, so I interpret her question to really mean, What's nearby? When Han says that Bespin is pretty far, it seems to me that is in reference to the limited range they now have due to the back-up (or damaged) hyperdrive.


This is a good point since back up hyperdrives have a limited range of 10 lightyears. It is clearly (even by the examples given in 1E) WEG's answer to TESB question.

To be honest, I didn't realize that backup hyperdrives have limited range when I wrote the above.

Basically, the backup hyperdrive and what I say above is the same thing.

Thanks for pointing that out, Whill.
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 03, 2017 7:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just read the entry for the Space Slug in the Sourcebook. It's an great example of why I think this is such a top notch game. I can really tell that the people who put this game together were not just doing a job. They were working at a project that they loved.

The Space Slug has a description, but it's surprising. Most slugs are in the 6-9 meter range. Slugs over 10 meters are unheard of. Slugs the size of the one seen in TESB are considered myth.

But besides that info, the book gives the GM ideas on how to use the critter in a game. Beyond the obvious of having the slugs just be a monster obstacle to overcome if the players ever hide their ship on an asteroid, the slug is actually hunted for its skin and innards. The slug is a silicon based life form, and its internal organs are used in a number of commercial processes, such as electronic devices. The creature's skin, itself, is used to create fine abrasives. Some parts of the creature are used in beauty products. And, as a result of all this, slugs are intensely hunted. They're worth about 1,000 creds per kilo.

Hunting space slugs could be the focus of a night's gaming. Finding them, killing them, harvesting what you need from them. Then, finding a dealer.

I think that's damn cool and a great example of why the D6 Star Wars game is a superior RPG.
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 04, 2017 1:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

RE: The Falcon's trip from Anoat to Bespin.



I just stumbled across WEG's address of this subject in GG 3: TESB. And, I quite like what I read. That will teach me to doubt WEG!

It turns out that Han replaced the backup hyperdrive with an old inferior system in order to boost more power to the main drives. This backup acts like a separate drive, and it's not even connected to the Navicom. The long method of entering hyperspace coordinates has to be performed in order to use it.

Further, this old recalcitrant, stubborn backup hyperdrive actually causes the Falcon's problem in the first place. After Solo's maneuver to float out with the Avenger's garbage, the reverse-triggering of his acceleration compensator cracked the casing on the main hyperdrive motivator and caused a severe systems failure in the hyperdrive backup.

While the backup damage was not critical, the drive was useful for only short bursts--hours of use--at a time.

Solo risked it, relying on sublight travel for quite a long time, taking short hyperspace trips when he thought it safe.

Thus, the Falcon made several small jumps to Bespin, taking long periods in normal space, and the trip took....something less than two months, since that was the limit of his consumables.

Actual time is still vague. Judging by the movie, it could be a few days. It could be a week or two. Or, it could even be almost two months, due to the magic of movie editing.



I love WEG's explanation in that the jury-rigged Falcon caused it's own problem.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 10:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think we have to assume it was around 2 months because we have another factor to consider in the measuring of time:

Luke, and his training on Dagobah.

Are we to assume that Luke went from Force sensitive novice to somewhat accomplished Jedi student who -- had he believed in himself -- would've been able to lift his ship out of the swamp in...what, 3 days? 2 weeks? And then just as soon after, he left?

No, I don't think so. I think he'd need at least a couple of months to get there. Maybe even more. Maybe what Han did was, while doing those short hops, stopped at a few stations, or small planets and picked up more consumables.

Regardless, the trip has to take at least a couple of months if only to provide time for Luke to train. Again, movie editing makes it all seem like 3 days total, and that might work for the magic space technology involved...but Luke presents a human limiting factor that can't be ignored. No matter how strong in the Force he may be, he still needed time to learn to control that, time to learn to use his sabre, etc.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 10:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It will be interesting to see how long it seems that Rey trains in The Last Jedi.

Remember, though, that Luke Skywalker is a bad-@$$ when it comes to The Force. He's THE MAN!

Just look at what Rey did without training. The Force seems to manifest itself in mysterious ways. Indeed, some powers appear in a person almost instantaneously, such as Rey's lightsaber duel with Kylo Ren.

My point: Luke could have progressed faster than any other student that Yoda had ever seen. Maybe he did progress from novice to accomplished student in two or three weeks.

Let's also not forget that The Empire Strikes Back takes place about three years after A New Hope. At the end of that film, Luke was a novice, but he's had three years of training, meditating, studying, maybe even speaking with the shadow of Ben Kenobi.

Luke is a novice, of course, in A New Hope.

Luke trains through his "basics" in between ANH and TESB. In Jedi college terms, he lives through his freshman and sophomore years. Even part of h is junior year.

In TESB, by the end of the film, he's completed his junior year and started his senior year. Vader is just toying with him at the Bespin battle, and cuts his hand off to remind Luke of that.

Another year goes by, and Luke graduates from Jedi School. He is a new Master. Then, he lives through ROTJ.



So, Luke's training, all-told, is 4-5 years.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 2:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In movies and television characters (and their vehicles) move at the speed of plot.

Similarly characters train at the speed of plot. And if its a movie from the 1980s you got a training montage with no clear understanding of whether that montage took an afternoon, a few days, a week, a month, or several months.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 7:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bren wrote:
In movies and television characters (and their vehicles) move at the speed of plot.


True, but the game rules are created to reflect the precedent set in the films.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 9:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
Bren wrote:
In movies and television characters (and their vehicles) move at the speed of plot.


True, but the game rules are created to reflect the precedent set in the films.

Exactly. Luke is trained on Dagobah during an early 1980s-style training montage* and, like any good training montage, the time required for Luke's training is unclear. Just as it will probably be unclear in The Last Jedi how long Rey's training takes. So based on movie precedent and setting tone, not using a specific number for how long training should take works better for me for Star Wars.


* ESB was 1980 and because it's the start of the 1980s and because Star Wars is space opera not rock opera, Luke's training montage doesn't have a proper rock music theme. Laughing
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2017 4:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
It will be interesting to see how long it seems that Rey trains in The Last Jedi.

Remember, though, that Luke Skywalker is a bad-@$$ when it comes to The Force. He's THE MAN!

Just look at what Rey did without training. The Force seems to manifest itself in mysterious ways. Indeed, some powers appear in a person almost instantaneously, such as Rey's lightsaber duel with Kylo Ren.

My point: Luke could have progressed faster than any other student that Yoda had ever seen. Maybe he did progress from novice to accomplished student in two or three weeks.

Let's also not forget that The Empire Strikes Back takes place about three years after A New Hope. At the end of that film, Luke was a novice, but he's had three years of training, meditating, studying, maybe even speaking with the shadow of Ben Kenobi.

Luke is a novice, of course, in A New Hope.

Luke trains through his "basics" in between ANH and TESB. In Jedi college terms, he lives through his freshman and sophomore years. Even part of h is junior year.

In TESB, by the end of the film, he's completed his junior year and started his senior year. Vader is just toying with him at the Bespin battle, and cuts his hand off to remind Luke of that.

Another year goes by, and Luke graduates from Jedi School. He is a new Master. Then, he lives through ROTJ.



So, Luke's training, all-told, is 4-5 years.


The notion that Luke "trained" in between ANH and ESB strikes me as a bit of a reach, really. Luke might have had opportunities to keep doing what Ben had taught him in ANH, but not much beyond that. I doubt he'd have been having long chats with Blue Glowie Ben for those three years, or doing training sessions. So, rather than freshman and/or sophomore year of college, I'd say it's more like he learned a few tricks and techniques...and just kept doing them until he could find a new teacher.

Yoda is a great teacher with tons of experience, so he may have been able to more effectively train Luke. Likewise, Luke is an extraordinary pupil, so he may have been a particularly quick and natural study. But even so, there's still a LOT that Luke would have to learn, so I don't think you can assume it's happening faster than about 2 months. And to be clear, 2 months of training to get to the point where Luke was at the end of ESB is AMAZING. Personally, I'd expect it to take way, way longer.

Even if we assume Luke did "train" between films (both between ANH/ESB and ESB/ROTJ), I think we need to treat time as having passed relatively slowly between the point where Han leaves the asteroid field, and arrives at Bespin.


Plus, just at a baseline, I generally prefer a "bigger" galaxy that takes longer to traverse.

Oh! Another thought! We don't really know how hyperspace works (other than that it looks a LOT like the opening credits of old Doctor Who...). Maybe there's a serious time-dilation effect at work. So, for the traveler, hyperspace feels like it only takes 2-3 days, whereas in real-space it's taking 2-3 weeks (depending on the hyperdrive's speed). This could help account for issues like provisioning for small fighter craft like an X-wing. It's not like Luke can just hop out and grab a snack while he's headed to Dagobah, so how does he survive the trip with no food or water? It makes sense if, for Luke in hyperspace, only a few hours have passed, but in real-space several days have passed.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 07, 2017 8:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lots of great stuff that a GM can use in a game is included in the Sourcebook. In reading about the Y-Wing, I read that those two domes that cover the front of the engine pods house the ship's dual sensor arrays.

The engines vibrate so much that it effects the passive sensors, making them not as sensitive as they would be otherwise. It takes a skilled sensor operator to compensate.

There's a handle on the underside of the nose that acts as a joysick while the ship is on the ground. A ground-tech reaches up and can guide the ship, pushing it around on its repulsors, all by himself.
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 1:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Solo4114 wrote:
The notion that Luke "trained" in between ANH and ESB strikes me as a bit of a reach, really. Luke might have had opportunities to keep doing what Ben had taught him in ANH, but not much beyond that. I doubt he'd have been having long chats with Blue Glowie Ben for those three years, or doing training sessions. So, rather than freshman and/or sophomore year of college, I'd say it's more like he learned a few tricks and techniques...and just kept doing them until he could find a new teacher.

Yoda is a great teacher with tons of experience, so he may have been able to more effectively train Luke. Likewise, Luke is an extraordinary pupil, so he may have been a particularly quick and natural study. But even so, there's still a LOT that Luke would have to learn, so I don't think you can assume it's happening faster than about 2 months. And to be clear, 2 months of training to get to the point where Luke was at the end of ESB is AMAZING. Personally, I'd expect it to take way, way longer.

Even if we assume Luke did "train" between films (both between ANH/ESB and ESB/ROTJ), I think we need to treat time as having passed relatively slowly between the point where Han leaves the asteroid field, and arrives at Bespin.

The notion that Luke didn't have some kind of additional training in between ANH and TESB is a reach for me. Obi-Wan taught Luke a little Sense and Control while defecting remote blasts on the hyperspace journey to Alderaan. Then three years later on Hoth, Luke knows Telekinesis. Where did he learn that? In light of RotJ where the Force runs strong in his family and the prequels where he is the son of the Chosen One with a higher m-word count that Yoda, Luke is an extremely exceptional student and that makes an accelerated brief Jedi training seem more plausible, but Luke gained some Force abilities after his brief training under Obi-Wan and before his training under Yoda. Lucas created Yoda because he killed off the original Jedi Master in the first film and didn't think a ghost could train Luke to be a Jedi. That makes sense to me so I don't feel that Luke could advance that much from a ghost that couldn't do more than give some pointers here and there. The most sensible conclusion to me is that Luke received some Jedi training in between Obi-Wan and Yoda. Not another Master, and probably not even a full-fledged Knight. It could have been a Padawan who survived the Jedi purge. Someone who had years of training but never completed it himself, so still leaving Luke to really need Yoda's training.

In the EU, TESB took place over the course of only five days (38:6:6-10). The major flaw I see with TESB taking place over a couple months is not the Jedi training on Dagobah but on the Han and Leia side of the story. After knowing each other for three years, they had a major advancement in their relationship in the asteroid field. Then there doesn't seem to be any further advancement or change in between the Executor and arriving on Bespin. It's already a strain that there wouldn't be much change over the previous three years but absurd that after the middle of TESB their relationship becomes static again for a couple months cooped up on a ship together. Five days works for the pacing of the story. Stretching the story out over two months seems to weaken the drama and adventure of it. All the Star Wars movies seem natural as taking place within a week.

Solo4114 wrote:
Another thought! We don't really know how hyperspace works (other than that it looks a LOT like the opening credits of old Doctor Who...). Maybe there's a serious time-dilation effect at work. So, for the traveler, hyperspace feels like it only takes 2-3 days, whereas in real-space it's taking 2-3 weeks (depending on the hyperdrive's speed). This could help account for issues like provisioning for small fighter craft like an X-wing. It's not like Luke can just hop out and grab a snack while he's headed to Dagobah, so how does he survive the trip with no food or water? It makes sense if, for Luke in hyperspace, only a few hours have passed, but in real-space several days have passed.

I wrote a paper in physics class on Einstein and Special Relativity, and I feel it doesn't really make sense for there to be time dilation in hyperspace (as far as theoretical dimensions go). Time dilation occurs when traveling in realspace at relativistic speeds. The equation that determines the time dilation based on velocity produces imaginary numbers (factors of the square root of -1) when entering superluminal speeds, not more time dilation. It is already a major handwave to say that the imaginary numbers mean something practical in hyperspace but the end result for superluminal travelers is time passage nearly identical to someone on a planet. Eliminating relativistic effects in hyperspace makes relatively (see what I did there?) more sense than just square-pegging time dilation into it. The math that measures time dilation for near the speed of light just doesn't make sense to apply to ships moving thousands of times the speed of light.

Sublight engine speeds are waaay below the speed of light and thus would not produce time dilation. Even if you're saying time dilation only occurs during the jumps to and from hyperspace, the film evidence does not support any time dilation occurring with space travel in Star Wars. All time dilation would be cumulative and noticeable over the course of someone's life. Han Solo presumably spent a lot of time in hyperspace in between RotJ and TFA, but he looked more than 30 years older in TFA, not less. People who experience significant amounts of time dilation would look young for their age because they would be younger than they would have been living life on a planet.
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