okay for those of us that are NOT into real world science, is there a reason that a super massive black hole (the millions or billions of stars in the center of the galaxy) would not just be a bigger still succk to be the planet problem? I assume it can't pull things faster... but I may be wrong
The first problem is the
narrative doesn't fit. The destruction of one star shouldn't result in
millions of stellar masses, even if you wave your hands and shout "But MAGIC!!!!1!one!" at the top of your lungs. You don't need millions of stellar masses to make the thing collapse - you can do it with 5 to tens of solar masses.
And, "pull faster" isn't a meaningful phrase. It pulls
harder, and as a result objects move towards it faster. And yes, it pulls harder. Imagine how hard the Sun pulls on the Earth. If you replace the Sun with a black hole with a million solar masses, it will pull on the Earth a
million times harder. Hm... let me crunch some numbers. Back in a sec...
Edit to add, okay, so say you replaced the Sun with a black hole that had the mass of a million suns.
The Earth normally feels an acceleration due to the Sun's gravity of 0.006 m/s^2. Jack that up by a million, and it is 6000 m/s^2. The Earth falls toward the hole, reaching 10% of the speed of light in about 83 minutes. If relativity weren't a factor, the planet would be at the black hole within another hour and a half. Less, really, as the acceleration increases the closer you get to the black hole.
From the outside, you have the time dilation thing where the planet seems to slow down as it approaches, light coming from it red-shifting as it falls, until it fades from view because no eye or instrument can detect the light it is emitting.
From the planet's point of view - less than three hours from the event until doom.
