Ok, so last film Han flies through the Mega Death Star shield via hyperspace. This lead me to believe that Star Wars hyperspace works like Star Trek or Star Gate. The ships transition into another sub dimension.
Cool OK... So why did Laura Dern's attack destroy the enemy fleet? Shouldnt she have gone 'through' them?
Shhh, you're asking too many questions! The mouse is not pleased!
shareThe only way that I could "defend" this attack (I hated the movie by he way) would be with a variable speed, if you could choose the speed of your ship you could move slower than the required jump speed maintaining you matter and since that matter would expand it could be used to deal a larger hit against something of course you would die in the process also.
shareNope. Han explains to Luke in ANH that “travelling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops boy! It takes precise calculations or you’ll fly too close to a Star or bounce right into a supernova, and that’d end your trip real quick”. Thus, a ship in hyperspace can collide with objects in normal space
shareHmmmm, I rather read it as they can collide on point of exit, if they stop at the wrong location in space. A slight miscalculation can mean billions of miles.... if you are right, they could not fly throug asteroid fields at lightspeeds, which they do.
shareThat might be more plausible. Recalling the scene in TLJ, the impact does happen at the point of entry into hyperspace, so at least part of the cruiser mass would have still been in real space. I also think that Holdo probably had no idea if it would work but just tried it out of desperation.
shareThat's kind of the impression I got from the original as well. But it doesn't explain Han's ability to pierce mega death star shield in TFA.
shareI believe the effects of collision only counts between the transition of space to subspace. When they're in hyperspace, it's free reign. When the Millennium Falcon existed hyperspace, I believe the point of exit from subspace to space was when they were already inside the shielding of Starkiller Base. Vice Admiral Holdo going to hyperspace was still a close distance and even closer distance when she turned the Mon Calamari Star Cruiser around to face them while they were still pursuing it to cause that collision effect.
shareExcept part of the line was 'we could fly right through a star.'
Also its quite often mentioned in other material that hyperspace routes need to be established.
I assumed this was because they were paths people knew to be clear of debris.
Im not fussed either way, Im really thinking more about the contradiction between films.
true but it could mean that a mis-calculated exit point could be through a star and so "a pretty short trip". Or it could mean Han just shutting young farm boy Luke up... If Subspace travel needs a clear path it is just an absurd demand as surely all space debris is unknown.... if this was so, a great defense would be to throw small rocks around your stadion - any arriving subspace travler would be shotgun pierced a moment before arrevil...
Plus I remember they do jump through asteroid fields at light speeds, which they wouldn't be able to.... unless, subspace takes them out of this risk.
Another question.
TFA establishes that Han can get through their shield if he travels at lightspeed .... so a bomb or rocket can also???
Sounds like a pretty big design flaw in a shield and in a world where pretty much anyone with any old space shuttle can travel at such speeds...
Secondly, in TLJ, a shame none got this idea with the fleet as it slowly ran out of gaz for the first Order to take them one by one... plenty of those doomed-anyway ships could have caused tremendous damage...
That was something I was thinking right off the bat... um, why has no one ever used this obviously OP super attack before?
shareBecause it’s a suicide mission for starters. But mainly it would seem that Holdo had a talent for improvisation and thinking outside the box.
shareWe could do this in the real world as well, ramming battleships with smaller ships, but we don't. It would be very expensive and the ships are usually full of people.
shareActually a common practice during WW2, not least from the Japanese, who did this in kamikaze planes. And even a few instances in the first Desert Storm too, as I recall.
shareWell we already had a pseudo-kamikaze fighter in Return of the Jedi, when that A-Wing took down the Executor by crashing into the bridge.
Of course, that Super Star Destroyer had the same flaw that many capital ships in sci-fi have: Putting the bridge right in the front with big windows (which will be largely useless in the vast dark emptiness of space where even huge ships will be little specks in the distance unless you're damn near running into them).
We do kind of do this though, we call them missiles.
shareI think light speed and hyperspace are different. One is just fast, one is tunneling to go past light speed.
shareI think there's bounceback.
If you watched Rogue One [spoiler] when the rebel fleet were just about to go into hyperspace, they failed and looked battered when Vader's ship exited out of hyperspace right in their path. Somehow, it looked to me that they took damage when their hyperspace jump point was blocked. So something physical can block them [/spoiler]
So then how did Han fly 'through' a shield?
shareI would've thought the shield works like that in Star Trek. It's not like a permanent energy wall, rather it fluctuates very fast, so that their inner lasers (timed against when the shield is off briefly) can shoot out. In Star Trek when you get their shield frequencies you can literally shoot through their shields.
My guess is hyperspace is so fast it can pass through the shields when they are cycled off.
i was under the impression he jumped into hyperspace with the destination inside the destroyer.
bigger question, why didnt they do it earlier?
Earlier? Like when the ship was full of people? Or when she was playing decoy so the other ships could escape? My view is that this plan had too many ways of failing, she was able to pull it of only because they were too focused on the escaping ships and ignored the big ship trying to escape through hyperspace (which they believed, they could track anyway). Has she tried to do something like this before, the First Order would have noted and made the necessary adjustment to avert it. The plan was a last resort thing and even she didn't know it would work. She got lucky the First Order got greedy on destroying small escaping ships.
shareI agree. And in truth, she only destroyed one (or was it a few) of several star destroyers... or rather; beside this huge star destroyer, we had several "normal" star destroyers too and one of those alone would be enough to end the rebellion. So her game was to buy time, even in this last and desperate attempt... time is all she could ever hope for. Total victory was just not feasible in any scenario.
shareHan said that the shield had a fractional refresh rate to stop anything going slower than light speed getting through. So the Falcon was able to pass the shield during a refresh. And not actually going through it.
shareDid he? Ok, that explains it then.
shareNext time send rockets at light speeds instead..... "great" shield in a world where pretty much any old pod racer can go by light speeds. :)
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