$17,000 bucks for a two-hour plane ride?

[Water Bob]

Star Wars hyperdrive speeds have always been "speed of plot", but they do seem to operate more in hours than days. Look at Attack of the Clones (go on, it'll only hurt a little bit) - Obi Wan is captured whilst spying on the Separatists on Geonosis, who are bringing their plans to fruition. Anakin and Padme set off from Tatooine to rescue him, after forwarding his SOS to the Jedi temple on Coruscant. Clearly they're not expecting to be days late to the party, so for them at least it must be a short trip.

This also supports what I said in post #11 about hyperspace lanes.

Post 11

You're thinking too linearly. Hyperspace is another dimension where spacial distances are distorted. That's why hyperspace routes are so important. They're the name of the game. You could have planet Core Worlds with two like vessels heading to the Rim. One ship takes a hyperspace route that is fairly straight (meaning clean of obstacles). The other ship takes a route that avoids a lot of astronomical obstacles. The first ship might reach its destination in a few hours where the other vessel's trip will take days.

Likewise, a ship taking off from a planet in the Rim, heading to the core worlds, could take a major trade route and be there in hours. The same ship, taking off from the same world, could use an old, outdated smuggler's route to a world in the same sector--very close, astronomically speaking, and also in the Rim--and get there in days.

I've read stories (which, I'm sure, are not canon now--but it doesn't mean the concept won't be canon in the future) that talk of scouts striking it rich after discovering and mapping out a faster hyperspace lane.

It's like old highways that used to go through small towns way back in the day, and then someone comes along and builds the interstate that by passes all those small towns. The interstate gets you to another city faster than by driving the highway system, even if the interstate takes a more round about approach.



Now that I see your evidence on top of what I wrote, my position that the base unit of hyperspace time is hours rather than days is becoming more entrenched.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

To confuse things a bit ... how long did Luke train on Dagobah? How long did it take Han and Leia to go from Hoth to Bespin?

The asteroid chase doesn't take very long, but the Falcon's main hyperdrive is out and they have to limp to Bespin (at what speed? At sublight they never get there). Some time elapses there before they get betrayed ... probably a few days ... but Luke shows up shortly after the betrayal. Surely, though, he doesn't complete all his Jedi training in just a few days. I mean, besides confronting Vader, Yoda does the rest of his Jedi training between arrival and Luke's departure for Bespin (or at least we're led to believe from RotJ, when Yoda says "No more training do you need, except Vader, you must confront Vader.")

Frankly, there's not much point at arguing over timing in Star wars; everything moves at the speed of plot. I think timelines should be much longer than shown/implied in the movies because otherwise lawless areas would be less lawless and much of the economy and politics of the galaxy don't work with near-instantaneous travel.

But whatever. Speed of plot.

 

[MarkB]

To confuse things a bit ... how long did Luke train on Dagobah? How long did it take Han and Leia to go from Hoth to Bespin?

The asteroid chase doesn't take very long, but the Falcon's main hyperdrive is out and they have to limp to Bespin (at what speed? At sublight they never get there).

The EU handwave for this, at least as used in some of the RPGs, is that starships carry a backup hyperdrive. It's much slower than the standard one, but also more reliable and hardier.

Some time elapses there before they get betrayed ... probably a few days ... but Luke shows up shortly after the betrayal. Surely, though, he doesn't complete all his Jedi training in just a few days. I mean, besides confronting Vader, Yoda does the rest of his Jedi training between arrival and Luke's departure for Bespin (or at least we're led to believe from RotJ, when Yoda says "No more training do you need, except Vader, you must confront Vader.")

Yeah, the Dagobah example isn't very helpful unfortunately, not least because Luke sees visions of Han, Leia and Chewbacca's torture as visions of the future, so he could potentially have set out to their rescue days before they were even in trouble.

 

[Morrus]

The actual answer is simple. The man who wrote a script using parsecs as a unit of time had no real concept of what a galaxy was. We have invented explanations for the parsec thing; we can invent expansions for the Dagobah thing. The only true answe is: Lucas didn't have a clue about astronomical distances.

Anything more than that is what we add to it. We invent excuses for the parsec error ("it refers to the shortest distance around a cluster of black holes") but it's all just make-up stuff to explain away Lucas' ignorance.

 

[Water Bob]

Star Wars hyperdrive speeds have always been "speed of plot", but they do seem to operate more in hours than days. Look at Attack of the Clones (go on, it'll only hurt a little bit) - Obi Wan is captured whilst spying on the Separatists on Geonosis, who are bringing their plans to fruition. Anakin and Padme set off from Tatooine to rescue him, after forwarding his SOS to the Jedi temple on Coruscant. Clearly they're not expecting to be days late to the party, so for them at least it must be a short trip. By the time Anakin and Padme have been captured and added to Obi Wan's already-scheduled elaborate arena-style execution, Mace Windu has journeyed from Coruscant and infiltrated the arena with a few dozen Jedi, and Yoda is only minutes behind him having flown to Kamino, rounded up a few thousand clone troopers into battleships, and then flown to Geonosis.

Or consider Luke Skywalker in Episodes V and VI. His primary mode of transport, going from Hoth to Dagobah to Bespin, then from Tatooine to Dagobah again and then to Sullust to rendezvous with the Rebel fleet is an X-Wing. Comfortable enough for hours at a time, perhaps, but days?

A couple of notes: Geonosis, on the official StarWars.com map, is extremely close to Tatooine.

OTOH, the SW universe has incredible FTL communications tech, though it is unclear to me whether the hyperlink is only available to the military and government or is a luxury that the entire galactic populace enjoys. One can assume that if instantaneous communication galaxy wide is possible, then some of that tech must bleed over into FTL travel of physical objects.

 

[MarkB]

A couple of notes: Geonosis, on the official StarWars.com map, is extremely close to Tatooine.

Sure, which justifies Anakin and Padme's journey. My example was more about how Yoda, taking a two-stage route from a Core world and mustering an entire army along the way, is at most only hours behind them.

OTOH, the SW universe has incredible FTL communications tech, though it is unclear to me whether the hyperlink is only available to the military and government or is a luxury that the entire galactic populace enjoys. One can assume that if instantaneous communication galaxy wide is possible, then some of that tech must bleed over into FTL travel of physical objects.

That seems like a bit of a stretch. Intercontinental air travel times weren't improved by the introduction of Skype.

 

[Umbran]

You're thinking too linearly. Hyperspace is another dimension where spacial distances are distorted.

Spacial dimensions have nothing to do with it. The *setting* is the issue. I'm not thinking linearly - I'm thinking plot-ily.


Tatooine, as described, includes the most "wretched hive of scum and villainy" around. This isn't something consistent with, "The Empire can beat the snot out of it a few hours after deciding to do so." Jabba's operation alone would not bear Imperial scrutiny. The Empire was extremely racist, and no power structure as large as Jabba's would be allowed to stand in the hands of a non-human alone and free that close to the core worlds for any length of time. It must be "distant" from the Imperial core to make sense as a setting element.

In most prior games, capital ships tend to have multiplies of 2 or greater - that four days becomes a week and more for a Star Destroyer. Then Tatooine does become a backwater few visit, a place it actually takes significant time and effort and supply chains to deploy forces to.

 

[Morrus]

Tatooine, as described, includes the most "wretched hive of scum and villainy" around. This isn't something consistent with, "The Empire can beat the snot out of it a few hours after deciding to do so." Jabba's operation alone would not bear Imperial scrutiny. The Empire was extremely racist, and no power structure as large as Jabba's would be allowed to stand in the hands of a non-human alone and free that close to the core worlds for any length of time. It must be "distant" from the Imperial core to make sense as a setting element.

I'm not sure that's true. The Krays and the Mafia existed in London and New York, respectively. Criminal organizations exist, no matter how oppressive the regime, and always will. And they often exist *really* close to the centre of government. Tatooine doesn't need to be that remote; it just needs to not be a priority.

 

[Water Bob]

Tatooine, as described, includes the most "wretched hive of scum and villainy" around. This isn't something consistent with, "The Empire can beat the snot out of it a few hours after deciding to do so." Jabba's operation alone would not bear Imperial scrutiny. The Empire was extremely racist, and no power structure as large as Jabba's would be allowed to stand in the hands of a non-human alone and free for any length of time. It must be "distant" from the Imperial core to make sense as a setting element.

According to the official map, Tatooine is on a major trade route.

My guess is this: Tatooine was settle as a mining colony. That's where the Jawas get the sandcrawlers. They're old mobile ore carrier/processing machines left behind by the mining companies. Moisture farmers thrived, selling water to the municipalities and mining companies on the arid world.

This is mostly likely when the backward, Rim world, established a major trade route to the core.





When the mines played, out, the mining companies left, and the world became depressed and forgotten. This is when it grew as a "hive of scum and villainy." The water market dropped, and many moisture farmers ended up making more from their underground agricultural crops--something that used to be a side-line business and self-supporting activity--than they did the water. The population shrank, and there were too many moisture farmers.

Over time, the trade route traffic to the world dropped. Over more time, Tatooine was forgotten--a desolate, played-out planet one a trade route that nobody had need to use.

That's how it got to be in the state it was at the beginning of A New Hope.

 

[Morrus]

According to the official map, Tatooine is on a major trade route.

Where is the official map? I tried googling it, but my skills failed me. I went to starwars.com, but couldn't see anything beyond the maze of upcoming movie promotional stills and videos. You keep mentioning it, so a link would be useful!

Are you sure it's canon, whatever it is?