Impaler
Ensign
Joined: 25 Jan 2025
Posts: 29
|
 Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2025 4:34 am Post subject: Re: I don't like the official Star Wars galaxy map |
 |
|
| CRMcNeill wrote: |
This is an assumption on your part. It could easily be several hours, as well, but there’s no sure way to tell. It’s also generally accepted that travel times are much faster along major hyperspace lanes, so having Tatooine be a backwater that just happens to be in close proximity to a major route is a possible explanation.
The OT kept travel times sufficiently vague as to justify longer travel times (which also helps justify a successful Rebellion, as it makes it a lot harder for the Empire to rapidly concentrate forces to combat them. Recall Mon Mothma’s quote from RotJ: “With the Imperial Fleet spread throughout the galaxy in a vain effort to engage us…” Having military forces dispersed means nothing if they can be reconstituted in a matter of hours. |
I have always favored the long travel times of the original WEG rpg suplements, these would list 4 to 6 hours between even adjacent star systems on the most prominent hyperspace lanes. Extrapolated to the Falcons Tatooine to Alderan trip this would imply a minimum of days to even a week for conventional class 1 drives, and if we accept the Falcon cuts this in half (which I will post on seperatly) then it would still be 3 days minimum to make that trip.
Other pieces of evidence for slow travel of that first trip in A New Hope.
1) Han is able to charge such a large fee for his trip, had this represented only the work of a day trip then such profitability would not see him or the Falcon in such dire financial state.
2) Jabba in the deleted scene seems to be giving Han well more then a day to repay his debt, and Han gives no indication that the 'easy job' is going to be over in a day or that Jabba is going to be paid back in a day or less. The tone is much more consistent with several days to a week before Jabba comes back to break kneecaps.
3) Transport ships are consistently shown with bunks/quarters reminisent of a ocean liner, even the Falcon guest quarters are bunks and accomadations for long duration. The use of airliner like seatings are nearly completly absent from StarWars, seen ONLY in an episode of Rebels in which a kind of commuter automated 'space buss' is taken on what looks like just a short hop to an adjacent planet is taken, and even this has the feel of being a few hours. If pan galactic distances could be covered by such services then their would be no market for anything and the fleets of ocean liner like 'transports' would not exist.
4) Biggs DarkLighter in the deleted scene with Luke tells him that he will be 'jumping ship' from the frigate that will be taking him to 'the central systems'. Basically this trip looks to be an above board equivilent of the one Han sells to Luke, a trip all the way to the core. Biggs being able to jump ship implies multiple stops at ports and stations along the way, again rulling out a duration of mere hours and implying operations much more like ocean liners crossing the Atlantic. If Biggs transport is something very slow like a class 3 it might be weeks, though how much the stops are contributing that would be hard to say.
| CRMcNeill wrote: |
It’s long been established that Jedi and Sith can hibernate to make long-distance trips easier. This also helps explain some of the long-distance trips made in the prequels. |
I prefer to avoid leaning on 'Force Stuff' to explain anything Luke did in an X-wing unless their is explicit claims by his fellow Rebels that such a feat is not normal aka "That shot was One in a Million". So with regard to X-wing trips I belive that Rebel pilots simply endure in thouse cockpits for days at a time, canonically they have 7 days of lifesupport and that Rebels use that to fly several days two and from raids. This maximizes their ability to strike far from any base or fleet and keep it secret which is absolutly essential for their survival. The longest Gemini capsule mission were 14 days so 7 days is not hard to imagine. Ultimatly Degoba's cononical distance from Hoth fo ~1/4 galactic radii being 7 days at class 1 hyperdrive is within the realm of belivability.
| CRMcNeill wrote: |
Also worth noting that Disney has been awful in this regard by making travel times incredibly short, which ultimately undermines the verisimilitude of the setting. |
I'd say JJ writing intentionally tries to crush the setting into a singularity in time, space and intelectual depth so as too create a frenetic pace that leaves you unable to comprehend the constant plotholes. In contrast the instances of implied fast travel from the Prequels I mostly chalk up to sloppyness in which the careful cultivated tradition nondeterminism of travel duration is not protected rather then an intentional effort to undermine that tradition. |
|
