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



## Water Bob (May 1, 2016)

It just hit me.  Luke and Ben promised Han 17,000 credits to take them from Tatooine to Alderaan.

Looking around the net, the consensus is that it took the trip took about 2 hours (some people argue about 2 days).

Luke says that a ship can almost be bought for 17,000 credits.  In the D6 Star Wars RPG, a used ship costs 25,000 (which fits Luke's statement).

Man, isn't that a lot of dough to cough up for a 2 hour ride?


----------



## Morrus (May 1, 2016)

There was that whole "avoiding Imperial entanglements" thing which bumped the cost up.

I didn't get the impression it was only two hours. Admittedly, SW travel speeds are incredibly fast and travel across the galaxy is usually dealt with by a quick screen wipe, unless something dramatic occurs en route.


----------



## Ryujin (May 1, 2016)

Imagine that was $17,000.00 for a flight from London, to Moscow, in an executive jet, without going through customs. So you could buy the jet. Could you fly it? How do you bypass customs?


----------



## Water Bob (May 1, 2016)

Morrus said:


> I didn't get the impression it was only two hours.




There's lots of debate on it, if  you look around.  The prevailing consensus seems to be about 2 hours, but there's also plenty of arguments for about 2 days.

I'll note, with the D6 Star Wars RPG, the original base travel time between Tatooine and Alderaan is 7 days.  Given Han's 8D Astrogation skill at the time, He could cut that down by 5 days easily (still having a 96% chance of avoiding a hyperspace mishap.  That's 8D rolling 20+.)  So, 2 days would seem about right, according to the game.

Then, errata came out, and all the "day" figures in First Edition became "hour" figures.  So, the base trip from Tatooine to Alderaan became 7 hours.  Using Han's Astrogation skill, that becomes 2 hours.

So, the rpg supports either opinion (2 days or 2 hours).



I think I'm partial to the "days" figure, but it does seem, watching the movies, that hyperspace travel is certain extremely fast.  I could buy and argument to use the "hours" figure easily.





*SIDE NOTE QUESTION FOR [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION]* - I've noticed that you change the tag for my Star Wars posts quite often from "Star Wars" to SAGA.  Am I reading the tag wrong?  I thought "Star Wars" was for all things Star Wars, and "SAGA" was meant for the d20 SAGA version of the rules.

Is that incorrect?


----------



## Maxperson (May 1, 2016)

Ryujin said:


> Imagine that was $17,000.00 for a flight from London, to Moscow, in an executive jet, without going through customs. So you could buy the jet. Could you fly it? How do you bypass customs?




It also takes time to buy a ship and they were in a big hurry.  When you're the only ride in town and you have two people in a hurry to get out of it, you can set the price as high as you like.  They either pay it, or stay put.


----------



## Morrus (May 1, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> *SIDE NOTE QUESTION FOR [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION]* - I've noticed that you change the tag for my Star Wars posts quite often from "Star Wars" to SAGA.  Am I reading the tag wrong?  I thought "Star Wars" was for all things Star Wars, and "SAGA" was meant for the d20 SAGA version of the rules.
> 
> Is that incorrect?




I've never changed any of your thread tags.


----------



## Water Bob (May 1, 2016)

Morrus said:


> I've never changed any of your thread tags.




Hm....I selected "Star Wars" but it comes up "SAGA"?


----------



## Umbran (May 1, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> Looking around the net, the consensus is that it took the trip took about 2 hours (some people argue about 2 days).




2 hours?  I don't think so.

Alderaan is in the Core worlds.  Tatooine is in the Outer Rim.  If it only took 2 hours go get from one to the other, the Outer Rim would not be lawless.  Moreoever, if that kind of trip is so short, how fast the Millennium Falcon is wouldn't be important enough to mention in the movie.  Plus, do you sit down to a game that looks like chess (so, long), or hand out and do training exercises if your entire trip is only going to be a couple of hours?  Probably not.  The scenes on the Falcon suggest settling-in time, to me.  

By Saga Edition rules, travel times are what the GM says they are supposed to be.  In the Star Wars d20 rules, the base time from Outer Rim to Core is, I believe, 96 hours (4 days), multiplied by your engine class.  The Falcon is typically taken to have a highly modified engine, with a 0.5 multiplier - that brings the time down to 2 days.  Though hyperdrive classes and multipliers are not mentioned directly in canon at this point.


----------



## Morrus (May 1, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> Hm....I selected "Star Wars" but it comes up "SAGA"?




Might be some categorisation confusion in the admin panel.  I'll take a look when I get some spare time.


----------



## Morrus (May 1, 2016)

Umbran said:


> The Falcon is typically taken to have a highly modified engine, with a 0.5 multiplier .




Yeah, that's the common way to explain "point five past light speed". I used it in WOIN for Star Wars style hyperdrives.


----------



## Water Bob (May 1, 2016)

Umbran said:


> 2 hours?  I don't think so.




Well, like I said, there's plenty of argument out there that supports both sides.  For me, the jury is still out.

Do a google for "How long does it take to travel from Tatooine to Alderaan" and see the results.  There's lots of arguments for 2 hours.







> Alderaan is in the Core worlds.  Tatooine is in the Outer Rim.  If it only took 2 hours go get from one to the other, the Outer Rim would not be lawless.




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.


----------



## Morrus (May 1, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> Do a google for "How long does it take to travel from Tatooine to Alderaan" and see the results.  There's lots of arguments for 2 hours.




Yes, but we're discussing it here. You can't substitute your part of the conversation by issuing homework assignments. 

If there a compelling arguments, present them.  

2 hours doesn't feel right to me. If the travel in SW is that fast (and I accept that JJ Abrahms thinks it is in both Wars and Trek) then so many concepts just don't work well.

I think the traditional SW screen wipe is deceptive and makes things feel quicker than they are.


----------



## Water Bob (May 1, 2016)

I made a mistake in my D6 Star Wars time guess.

Both Chewie and Han have 8D in Astrogation (wow!).  I think it's best to assume Han programmed the Nav Computer for the Tatooine to Alderaan jump seen in A New Hope.

The Falcon's Hyperdrive is rated at .5.

The base time from Tatooine to Alderaan is 7 days (15+ Moderate Difficulty).



The Falcon's Hyperdrive cuts the base time in half:  3.5 days.

Han's Astrogation is so high, he can easily shave off 2 days and still have, for all practical purposes, a 100% chance of success (8D for 17+ = >99%).  

So, the minimum time the Falcon took was 1.5 days.



Han can still shave off more  time with very little risk.  He can shave off another day with only a 1% chance of failure.  Travel time would be 12 hours.



With the errata, the base travel time from Tatooine to Alderaan is 7 hrs.  This is also the base time in the Second Edition and later editions of the game.

So, the Falcon's Hyperdrive would cut the trip to 3.5 hours as a base.

And, Han's mastery with the Navicomp would cut that down to 1.5 hours with virtually no chance of mishap.

Han could accept a 1% chance of failure and get there in 30 minutes!


----------



## Morrus (May 1, 2016)

Hmmm. I don't know that George Lucas had WEG's game rules in mind when he write Star Wars.

I think we can only go with what's in the film. How WEG interpreted it is no more valid than how we do. 

The movie is unclear, of course. I think all we can do is ask ourselves "how long does it feel?" For me, the answer is a day or two.


----------



## ccs (May 1, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> There's lots of debate on it, if  you look around.  The prevailing consensus seems to be about 2 hours, but there's also plenty of arguments for about 2 days.
> 
> I'll note, with the D6 Star Wars RPG, the original base travel time between Tatooine and Alderaan is 7 days.  Given Han's 8D Astrogation skill at the time, He could cut that down by 5 days easily (still having a 96% chance of avoiding a hyperspace mishap.  That's 8D rolling 20+.)  So, 2 days would seem about right, according to the game.
> 
> ...




I guess I always figured it to be half a day or so (based upon assumptions that movie-world time = real world time for hours/minutes etc).  
I know in the script Han says they should reach Alderaan about at oh-two-hundered hours.   So 2AM?  I figured they left Mos Eisley sometime in the afternoon. 2-4pm?  So a 10-12 hr trip?  I also assumed that ETA took into account the falcons speed/Hans nav skill.  
So when I read the WEG stuff I was like "Days?  I think they got this formulae wrong".  Apparently they got it wrong again as well.


----------



## Ryujin (May 1, 2016)

Morrus said:


> Hmmm. I don't know that George Lucas had WEG's game rules in mind when he write Star Wars.
> 
> I think we can only go with what's in the film. How WEG interpreted it is no more valid than how we do.
> 
> The movie is unclear, of course. I think all we can do is ask ourselves "how long does it feel?" For me, the answer is a day or two.




Feels the same to me. Chess games and Force training don't feel like the sort of thing that happens in couple of hour-long trips.


----------



## Morrus (May 1, 2016)

Ryujin said:


> Feels the same to me. Chess games and Force training don't feel like the sort of thing that happens in couple of hour-long trips.




Yeah. Interludes definitely imply longer journeys.


----------



## ccs (May 1, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> I made a mistake in my D6 Star Wars time guess.
> 
> Both Chewie and Han have 8D in Astrogation (wow!).  I think it's best to assume Han programmed the Nav Computer for the Tatooine to Alderaan jump seen in A New Hope.
> 
> ...




You're not making a compelling argument to believe WEG knew what they were talking about.  You know that right?


----------



## Water Bob (May 1, 2016)

Morrus said:


> Yes, but we're discussing it here. You can't substitute your part of the conversation by issuing homework assignments.
> 
> If there a compelling arguments, present them.




The biggest argument is the film itself.  Go back and watch A New Hope (another Homework Assignment!).  Note the scene where Luke trains with the light saber and remote, blast shield down on the helm.  Han comes out of the cockpit corridor and says, "Well, you can forget your troubles with those Imperial slugs.  I told ya I'd outrun 'em."

Obviously, this is the first time Han has seen Luke or Ben since making the jump to hyperspace.

Some time has passed.  But, it doesn't look like a lot of time.  Luke and Ben were on the bridge when the jump was made.  Now, they're in the lounge with Luke practicing with saber and remote.  Chewie and droids are deep into a game of holochess.

The scene is continual, without cutting elsewhere.  Han talks about hokey religions and tells the droids to let the Wookiee win.  Ben shows off his pupil by putting a helmet on Luke with the blast shield down.

The scene is several minutes, but still a shot period of time.    Then, the alarms go off, and Han says, "Looks like we're coming up on Alderaan."

The question is:  How long did Han stay in the cockpit before going aft to join the others?

Days?  No way.

Hours?  Possibly.

Minutes?  Most likely.  




I could definitely buy half an hour.

Luke and Ben went aft and started training.

Chewie, at some point, leaves Han in the cockpit, wanders aft and gets into a game of holochess with the droids.  It is likely that he didn't go straight back there and start the game, but he might have.  He could go back, say something like, "Well, we've got less than an hour to kill.  Who's up for some holochess?  Ben?  Luke?  No?  Okay, you droids, play holochess with me."

The revised D6 Star Wars time I wrote above could be spot on, given all of this evidence.  30 minutes or 1.5 hours, I could definitely see, given the scenes in the film.


----------



## Water Bob (May 1, 2016)

ccs said:


> You're not making a compelling argument to believe WEG knew what they were talking about.  You know that right?




Well, WEG is known to have well researched material that Lucasfillm went over with a fine toothed comb.   The WEG material was used, for years, as the "bible" for all things Star Wars.  When Timothy Zahn was writing Heir to the Empire, the book that launched the EU, Lucasfilm sent him loads of WEG material, and you can see it in his writing as he references vehicles and items in his books.  Other Star Wars authors and game designers also used WEG materials as a universe bible.

The scene that I reference in the above post seems to support WEG's revised travel time (7 hours base, 30 min to 1.5 hours for the Falcon in the movie).


----------



## Water Bob (May 1, 2016)

In addition, I found this quote from the George Lucas' novelization (which, I understand, was ghost written by Alan Dean Foster, based on George's script):



> Luke arched his back, and the pose was so strange Han couldn’t keep his chuckle in. The kid must have heard it because he scowled and switched the lightsaber off. “Oh, this is pointless. What can I really learn on a ship in a few hours?”
> 
> Exactly. Han dropped his mask back down over his face and returned to the circuitry in front of him.
> 
> “I do not expect you to master everything in mere minutes, and you should not expect that of yourself, either. That is a path to frustration, anger—and both are dangerous.”






Luke infers that he'll only be on the ship a few hours.  3 hours?

More evidence that the trip is 3 hours or less and not days.


----------



## Morrus (May 1, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> Well, WEG is known to have well researched material that Lucasfillm went over with a fine toothed comb.




I think most of us can pretty much recite Star Wars by heart. I'd argue the average fan has "researched" the movie as well as any company has. 



> The WEG material was used, for years, as the "bible" for all things Star Wars.  When Timothy Zahn was writing Heir to the Empire, the book that launched the EU, Lucasfilm sent him loads of WEG material, and you can see it in his writing as he references vehicles and items in his books.  Other Star Wars authors and game designers also used WEG materials as a universe bible.




Well, if we're arguing official canon, all the EU, games, novels, video games, etc. has been declared non-canon.

All we have to go on, therefore, is the actual movie. I love the WEG game, but it has no more authority than FASA's had on Star Trek.


----------



## Water Bob (May 1, 2016)

I'm leaning towards the "hours" version.

But, [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] said to present the compelling arguments I found on the net.  OK, here's an argument for the otherside--that thinking that the trip is a couple of days.



This is the "days" version.  But, it's a weaker argument.

1.  We assume that the scene where Han comes from the cockpit and says, "I told ya I'd outrun 'em," didn't happen right after the jump to hyperspace.  Maybe they were worried about being tracked through hyperspace or had been talking about it on the journey as Han went to the cockpit to check on the controls.  This could have been a day or more later as we've got the cut to the Death Star and Alderaan being destroyed between the Falcon jumping to hyperspace and Han coming from the cockpit to watch Luke train.

This is a weaker argument because we've got to make a real leap of faith that Han is not coming from the cockpit and seeing Ben and Luke for the first time since the jump happened.  Minutes in the cockpit, even an hour or so, is more believable than he's slept overnight and returned to the cockpit.



2.  Leia was captured on Vader's Star Destroyer.  The SD has to rendezvous with the Death Star (or send her in a ship to the DS).  The DS had to jump to the Alderaan system and destroy Alderaan.  It can't do all this in just a few hours.

This is a weaker argument because Leia was captured early in the film, and there were obvious days--absolutely one day at the minimum--that the Imperials had time to ship Leia off.  Other Imperial SDs showed up at Tatooine after a call went out that Vader's SD had intercepted the Rebels with the DS plans (when Vader took over Leia's ship at the opening shot of the film) like cops piling on and arriving late at a crime scene.  The Death Star has plenty of time to receive Leia, torture her, and make its way to Alderaan


----------



## Water Bob (May 1, 2016)

Morrus said:


> Well, if we're arguing official canon, all the EU, games, novels, video games, etc. has been declared non-canon.
> 
> All we have to go on, therefore, is the actual movie. I love the WEG game, but it has no more authority than FASA's had on Star Trek.






Fair enough.  Let's drop the WEG support of the argument and just use the film scene as I outlined in post #19.


----------



## Morrus (May 1, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> In addition, I found this quote from the George Lucas' novelization (which, I understand, was ghost written by Alan Dean Foster, based on George's script):
> 
> Luke infers that he'll only be on the ship a few hours.  3 hours?
> 
> More evidence that the trip is 3 hours or less and not days.




Nah, he just implies he's doing a few hours' training while on the ship.


----------



## Water Bob (May 1, 2016)

Morrus said:


> Nah, he just implies he's doing a few hours' training while on the ship.




And...the evidence in post #19?


----------



## Morrus (May 1, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> And...the evidence in post #19?




I'm on a phone. Doesn't show post numbers. Remind me?

It feels like you have a decision and are just looking for validation of it? If so, sure. It's 3 hours.


----------



## MarkB (May 1, 2016)

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?


----------



## Water Bob (May 1, 2016)

Morrus said:


> I'm on a phone. Doesn't show post numbers. Remind me?




I'll copy it for you:



> *POST 19*
> 
> The biggest argument is the film itself. Go back and watch A New Hope (another Homework Assignment!). Note the scene where Luke trains with the light saber and remote, blast shield down on the helm. Han comes out of the cockpit corridor and says, "Well, you can forget your troubles with those Imperial slugs. I told ya I'd outrun 'em."
> 
> ...










> It feels like you have a decision and are just looking for validation of it?




I was more on the "2 days" side of the fence when I started this thread, but after reviewing the movie (what I write above), I think it's more clear that we're talking about a few hours at most--possibly less than one hour.

It's also a bonus that the movie supports the D6 WEG rules.


----------



## Morrus (May 1, 2016)

I'd say that seems fairly convincing. Taking movie evidence only, looks like the trip is hours, now days. You've convinced me.


----------



## Water Bob (May 1, 2016)

MarkB said:


> 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 (May 1, 2016)

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 (May 1, 2016)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> 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 (May 1, 2016)

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 (May 1, 2016)

MarkB said:


> 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 (May 1, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> 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 (May 2, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> 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 (May 2, 2016)

Umbran said:


> 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 (May 2, 2016)

Umbran said:


> 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 (May 2, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> 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?


----------



## Maxperson (May 2, 2016)

I wouldn't place too much stock in the movie evidence.  You don't want to make scene after scene of travel, so you do it in once scene.  There could have been two hours of travel, or two days of travel and they just picked out those few scenes from the journey for the film.


----------



## Umbran (May 2, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> The question is:  How long did Han stay in the cockpit before going aft to join the others?
> 
> Days?  No way.
> 
> ...




Actually, I'd go with hours.  Chewbacca isn't exactly the most extroverted person around.  He must have left the cockpit, and been hanging around long enough with people to (get bored and) decide to get into a game with a droid, and get that game well underway.  That doesn't sound like minutes.


----------



## Water Bob (May 2, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Actually, I'd go with hours.  Chewbacca isn't exactly the most extroverted person around.  He must have left the cockpit, and been hanging around long enough with people to (get bored and) decide to get into a game with a droid, and get that game well underway.  That doesn't sound like minutes.




At this point, I'd believe 3 hours or less.


----------



## Maxperson (May 2, 2016)

If travel time was only a few hours from core to rim, there would be no lawless areas.  Further, there would also be no Empire or Republic.  The entire might of both governments could be brought to bear anywhere in the other side's territory and nothing could be done about it.  A few hours travel, a few hours to destroy the planet of your choice, a few hours back to starting place and you'd be back home in time for supper and the other side wouldn't even have time to begin formulating a defense or counter strike.  The two powers would have long since destroyed one another one piece at a time.


----------



## Umbran (May 2, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> If travel time was only a few hours from core to rim, there would be no lawless areas.




If we revert to the game version for a moment, the travel time is hours for the best pilot in the galaxy with a small ship modified to be extremely fast and not terribly reliable.  It is then a week or more for a ship of the line.



> Further, there would also be no Empire or Republic.  The entire might of both governments could be brought to bear anywhere in the other side's territory and nothing could be done about it.




The Empire and Republic don't exist at the same time - the Republic *becomes* the Empire when Palpatine gains control of it.

You might mean the New Republic/Resistance and the First Order (in The Force Awakens).  All I can say there is that the canon, and what we see in the film, is either nonsensical or physically impossible, and we must just sort of wave our hands at it and not think about it too much.


----------



## Maxperson (May 2, 2016)

Umbran said:


> If we revert to the game version for a moment, the travel time is hours for the best pilot in the galaxy with a small ship modified to be extremely fast and not terribly reliable.  It is then a week or more for a ship of the line.




Why would ships of the line not have the best hyperdrives?



> The Empire and Republic don't exist at the same time - the Republic *becomes* the Empire when Palpatine gains control of it.




Hmm.  I'm not sure what is cannon and what isn't anymore.  At least not about the past.  I thought the Empire and old Republic existed at the same time thousands of years in the past.

In any case, at the time of Episodes 1-3, there are factions with enough ships to destroy worlds that weren't the old Republic.  If travel were that easy, even at a week to travel, what I suggested would still be easy to accomplish.  Travel a week and hit a planet with overwhelming force.  Leave and travel back. You'd be home before the enemy could mobilize and get to your undefended planets.  Rinse and repeat for both sides.  

War would be so devastating that neither side could survive, so there'd probably be no war.



> You might mean the New Republic/Resistance and the First Order (in The Force Awakens).  All I can say there is that the canon, and what we see in the film, is either nonsensical or physically impossible, and we must just sort of wave our hands at it and not think about it too much.




Yeah.  I look forward to seeing what develops.


----------



## Water Bob (May 2, 2016)

Morrus said:


> 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?




Yeah, it's supposed to be cannon.  The actual map is in the book, The Star Wars Essential Atlas, but you can see parts of it online.

Look HERE for some companion information.

THIS PDF DOCUMENT from that StarWars.com page is a list of all known worlds in the Star Wars universe with grid markers to help you find it on the official map.


----------



## Water Bob (May 2, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Hmm.  I'm not sure what is cannon and what isn't anymore.  At least not about the past.  I thought the Empire and old Republic existed at the same time thousands of years in the past.




Back in the now non-canon Tales of the Jedi era (The Old Republic era from the online and single player computer games) had a Sith Empire and the Old Republic exist at the same time, but that's not the same Empire that Palpatine created.




Oh....and I just discovered that Palpatine finally got a canon first name!  It's* Sheev* Palpatine!


----------



## delericho (May 2, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> It just hit me.  Luke and Ben promised Han 17,000 credits to take them from Tatooine to Alderaan.
> 
> Looking around the net, the consensus is that it took the trip took about 2 hours (some people argue about 2 days).
> 
> ...




If you're one of the Empire's most wanted, you're travelling with a kid whose name will draw attention from exactly the wrong people (and he doesn't even know why), you've got two droids in tow that the Empire are urgently looking for, and you've got a message that _absolutely must_ be delivered safely?

Yeah, in those circumstances you hire a smuggler and blockade runner who can "avoid any Imperial entanglements"... and you have to pay what you have to pay.


----------



## MarkB (May 2, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> If travel time was only a few hours from core to rim, there would be no lawless areas.




Travel time from core to rim of any continent on Earth is only a few hours. We still have plenty of lawless areas.


----------



## Morrus (May 2, 2016)

MarkB said:


> Travel time from core to rim of any continent on Earth is only a few hours. We still have plenty of lawless areas.




We don't have a worldwide military dictatorship running things, unlike the Star Wars galaxy.


----------



## Umbran (May 2, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Why would ships of the line not have the best hyperdrives?




They have perfectly good hyperdrives.  However, they are also humongous.  



> Hmm.  I'm not sure what is cannon and what isn't anymore.  At least not about the past.  I thought the Empire and old Republic existed at the same time thousands of years in the past.




My understanding is that none of the stuff about thousands of years ago is canon now.  That's all EU.  We have one Republic, on Empire, as depicted in the movies.



> In any case, at the time of Episodes 1-3, there are factions with enough ships to destroy worlds that weren't the old Republic.  If travel were that easy, even at a week to travel, what I suggested would still be easy to accomplish.  Travel a week and hit a planet with overwhelming force.  Leave and travel back. You'd be home before the enemy could mobilize and get to your undefended planets.  Rinse and repeat for both sides.




For all their advances in technology over our world, it seems that the arms/defenses race has left the Star Wars universe in a place where military tactics don't differ all that much from our own.  They still need to put boots on the ground, for the most part.  And, the number of boots required to pacify a planet is very, very large.  Sides need to resort to rapidly constructed drones or cone armies to be able to manage a major war...


----------



## Ryujin (May 2, 2016)

MarkB said:


> Travel time from core to rim of any continent on Earth is only a few hours. We still have plenty of lawless areas.




Travel time is less important than how you are "greeted" at the destination.


----------



## Istbor (May 2, 2016)

One thought on the 'Lawless' argument I think is that we are talking about a whole Galaxy, or at least a significant portion of one.  This Galaxy is now under an Empire that has had an open rebellion for at least a few years. They may simply not have the ships and troops to be able to be everywhere at once, in the strength they require.  

A New Hope shows that there is a heightened Trooper presence but it also illustrates that there is a force that is stationed there as a type of garrison and policing unit. 

Sending a sizable enough force there to quell whatever criminal activity the Empire deems a threat could then require removing forces from another potentially volatile area.  It becomes a balancing act.  Do we allow some criminals to roam free that at most are just going to seek their own gain and not harm the Empire as a whole, or do we leave *insert system not friendly toward their Imperial masters here* undermanned to stop these Hutts, potentially opening up the previous system for rebellion. 

The Empire does not want to play Galactic wack-a-mole, so instead lets the smaller less dangerous fish go free.  It is only when the droids are sought after that the stronger presence is deemed necessary. 

That is... just a thought in the event that HS travel at large is only hours for many ships.


----------



## Maxperson (May 3, 2016)

MarkB said:


> Travel time from core to rim of any continent on Earth is only a few hours. We still have plenty of lawless areas.




A more applicable analogy would be to just use America or any other 1st world nation.  You have some who break laws, but there are no areas of lawlessness because we have too many armed forces able to respond to anywhere very quickly.  

Also, I don't know what the heck you travel in, but even an airplane takes 5 hours to go from one end of America to the other, let alone from the equator to the pole.  A trip from core to rim is more than a few hours.


----------



## Maxperson (May 3, 2016)

Umbran said:


> They have perfectly good hyperdrives.  However, they are also humongous.
> 
> My understanding is that none of the stuff about thousands of years ago is canon now.  That's all EU.  We have one Republic, on Empire, as depicted in the movies.
> 
> For all their advances in technology over our world, it seems that the arms/defenses race has left the Star Wars universe in a place where military tactics don't differ all that much from our own.  They still need to put boots on the ground, for the most part.  And, the number of boots required to pacify a planet is very, very large.  Sides need to resort to rapidly constructed drones or cone armies to be able to manage a major war...




I don't really think the Empire did need to put boots on the ground.  They proved that they have the guts to just blow up a world.  After the second or third lawless world they melted with an imperial fleet or three, nobody else would mouth off.


----------



## RangerWickett (May 3, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> If travel time was only a few hours from core to rim, there would be no lawless areas.




We can fly to Somalia in less than a day. Why are there still pirates there?

We can get into Mexico in a couple hours. Why are the cartels still causing trouble?

We've got military bases within spitting distance of Syria. ISIS is kinda on the downswing I hear, but it's not like we just swoop in with a few aircraft carriers and suddenly the whole place is under our control. 

Why would the Empire bother spending resources to secure Tattooine. It's only a problem when it becomes a problem. Send some troops in to find Obi-Wan Bin Laden, but we're not going to be able to 'control' the place without wasting money. And who wants to be around those weird aliens anyway?


----------



## delericho (May 3, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> I don't really think the Empire did need to put boots on the ground.  They proved that they have the guts to just blow up a world.  After the second or third lawless world they melted with an imperial fleet or three, nobody else would mouth off.




That was Tarkin's theory, at least. Leia disagreed: "the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."


----------



## Maxperson (May 3, 2016)

RangerWickett said:


> We can fly to Somalia in less than a day. Why are there still pirates there?
> 
> We can get into Mexico in a couple hours. Why are the cartels still causing trouble?




Because we aren't the Empire.  If we were the Empire, we would just nuke Somalia and the cartels and be done with it.



> Why would the Empire bother spending resources to secure Tattooine. It's only a problem when it becomes a problem. Send some troops in to find Obi-Wan Bin Laden, but we're not going to be able to 'control' the place without wasting money. And who wants to be around those weird aliens anyway?




The wouldn't bother to secure Tattooine.  They'd destroy it as an example and let it be known to the other planets to fall in line or be destroyed.


----------



## Maxperson (May 3, 2016)

delericho said:


> That was Tarkin's theory, at least. Leia disagreed: "the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."




If she believed that, she'd have let the Death Star survive


----------



## delericho (May 3, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> If she believed that, she'd have let the Death Star survive




Not necessarily. Leia may well have considered that winning the philosophical point wasn't worth the price of a few billion lives each time the Death Star blew up a planet.


----------



## Maxperson (May 3, 2016)

delericho said:


> Not necessarily. Leia may well have considered that winning the philosophical point wasn't worth the price of a few billion lives each time the Death Star blew up a planet.




Well, since we're discussing my joke a bit more seriously, I don't think that was the reason.  I think she blew it up because if she didn't, she loses.  They couldn't fight it conventionally, so blowing it up via the plans was the only way they had a chance to beat the Empire.


----------



## delericho (May 3, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Well, since we're discussing my joke a bit more seriously, I don't think that was the reason.  I think she blew it up because if she didn't, she loses.  They couldn't fight it conventionally, so blowing it up via the plans was the only way they had a chance to beat the Empire.




Well, yeah, there's that too.


----------



## Water Bob (May 3, 2016)

delericho said:


> That was Tarkin's theory, at least. Leia disagreed: "the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."




The Tarkin Doctrine.


----------



## delericho (May 3, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> The Tarkin Doctrine.




Yes, indeed. Though even that name is now no longer canon, I think.


----------



## Water Bob (May 5, 2016)

Has anybody else noticed that Luke seems to use Vader's favorite use of the Force, the Choke, in Return of the Jedi?  When he fights his way into Jabba's palace at the start of the film, there's a quick cut where he motions to one of the Gamorrean guards.  The guard quickly repels from Luke, grabbing his throat.

That's a legitimate use of the Force for a Jedi?


----------



## Water Bob (May 5, 2016)

Well, I'll be...

I'm scanning through a supplement for the D6 Star Wars roleplaying game.  This particular book is* Galaxy Guide 7:  Mos Eisley*, published by WEG in 1993. 

I'm flipping through, and something catches my eye.  An NPC.  His name?  Mace Windu.

No kidding!

Six YEARS before Sam Jackson took the part in 1999's The Phantom Menace.



Mace Windu in the GG is no Jedi.  He's a squib. He's an airhead, and he's working in a droid shop.


----------



## Scott DeWar (May 5, 2016)

maybe it is not about 2 x amount of time, but distance.

given the possibility of 2 hours

given C = 300,000,000 meters/ second or 186,000 miles/second

then 2 hours of time  would have taken them at 1.5C

3.24 *10^12 meters
or
2.0088*10^10 miles

that is a log ways to go in a short tim, so 17,000 cr for that distance? worth it.


----------



## delericho (May 5, 2016)

Loathe as I am to reference the prequels, in RotS Padme notes that she saw Anakin "yesterday" while he's in the process of killing the Separatist leaders on Mustafar.


----------



## Scott DeWar (May 5, 2016)

delericho said:


> Loathe as I am to reference the prequels, in RotS Padme notes that she saw Anakin "yesterday" while he's in the process of killing the Separatist leaders on Mustafar.



 now go wash yourself after trudging through that mess!


----------



## Maxperson (May 5, 2016)

Scott DeWar said:


> now go wash yourself after trudging through that mess!




Pretty much, and she could have been lying.  I'm certainly going to watch it to find out.

I love how in a galaxy full of advanced technology and Jedi that can sense life, everyone was caught off guard by her having twins, and yet she had the extra name available to use seconds before just died of a broken heart.  Ugh!


----------



## delericho (May 5, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> I love how in a galaxy full of advanced technology and Jedi that can sense life, everyone was caught off guard by her having twins, and yet she had the extra name available to use seconds before just died of a broken heart.  Ugh!




Um... if she didn't know the sex, she'd have needed two names.


----------



## Maxperson (May 5, 2016)

delericho said:


> Um... if she didn't know the sex, she'd have needed two names.




There's no way in an advanced society like that, that she didn't know she was having twins, and it's only slightly more likely that she didn't know the sex.  I'll buy that answer, though, since it's at least possible.  

Everyone would have known about twins, though.


----------



## delericho (May 5, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> There's no way in an advanced society like that, that she didn't know she was having twins, and it's only slightly more likely that she didn't know the sex.  I'll buy that answer, though, since it's at least possible.
> 
> Everyone would have known about twins, though.




That's far from a given. 

_She_ almost certainly would have known, but we don't actually get to see her reaction. She _might_ have chosen to talk to Obi-Wan or Bail about it... or she might not. If nothing else, she has good reason not to discuss her pregnancy with Jedi in any detail.


----------



## Maxperson (May 5, 2016)

delericho said:


> That's far from a given.
> 
> _She_ almost certainly would have known, but we don't actually get to see her reaction. She _might_ have chosen to talk to Obi-Wan or Bail about it... or she might not. If nothing else, she has good reason not to discuss her pregnancy with Jedi in any detail.




In the scene, twins were announced with surprise.  It was as if no one knew. If they knew, then the scene was even worse since they acted like they didn't.


----------



## delericho (May 5, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> In the scene, twins were announced with surprise.  It was as if no one knew. If they knew, then the scene was even worse since they acted like they didn't.




It's announced to Yoda, Bail Organa, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, by a medical droid examining Padme for the first time. Padme herself _is not in the scene_.

It is unlikely that _Padme_ didn't know she was carrying twins. That doesn't apply to anyone else.


----------



## Istbor (May 5, 2016)

How conceited we are to think that everyone wants to know what gender of child we are bringing into the world.  We can tell now with approximate certainty what the gender will be. Some people choose to wait for the surprise, why not Padme. 

We are also going off some random assumption that near the end of the movie she goes to the same hospital she would have gone to for check ups and other maternal appointments. So yes, it could come as a surprise to that facility she is taken to, that has no prior knowledge of her status.


----------



## delericho (May 5, 2016)

Istbor said:


> We are also going off some random assumption that near the end of the movie she goes to the same hospital she would have gone to for check ups and other maternal appointments.




Actually, we can be near-certain it _wasn't_ the same facility, since she had spent basically the whole movie on Coruscant before leaving it to go straight to Mustafar and from there to be taken by Obi-Wan (by then a fugitive) to a facility where he meets with Yoda and Organa. I'm not sure we know where exactly that facility is, but we seen from the establishing shot that it's not on Coruscant.


----------



## Istbor (May 5, 2016)

Exactly. What is more, even IF there was an internet like technology in place, trying to retrieve those records would probably have been unwise.  No doubt a crafty Sith lord would have flagged such information.


----------



## Water Bob (May 6, 2016)

The book just released, BLOODLINE, is supposed to fill in some blanks:  What happened after Return of the Jedi?  How did the First Order spring up out of the old Empire.  How did the Resistance spring up as a tangent to the New Republic/Alliance?

And...something happens to Leia that brings her into disfavor with the New Republic.  My guess is that it gets out that she's Vader's kid.


----------



## Maxperson (May 6, 2016)

delericho said:


> It's announced to Yoda, Bail Organa, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, by a medical droid examining Padme for the first time. Padme herself _is not in the scene_.
> 
> It is unlikely that _Padme_ didn't know she was carrying twins. That doesn't apply to anyone else.




It's announced to two of the most powerful Jedi masters who can sense life forces...  Do you really think that dozens of Jedi masters, including Anakin, all failed to detect twins?


----------



## Water Bob (May 7, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> It's announced to two of the most powerful Jedi masters who can sense life forces...  Do you really think that dozens of Jedi masters, including Anakin, all failed to detect twins?




In Episode VI, Vader sense Luke, and Luke senses Vader.  But, the Emperor doesn't sense Luke.  He remarks upon it.

The Force Works in Mysterious Ways.


----------



## Maxperson (May 7, 2016)

Water Bob said:


> In Episode VI, Vader sense Luke, and Luke senses Vader.  But, the Emperor doesn't sense Luke.  He remarks upon it.
> 
> The Force Works in Mysterious Ways.




Dozens of masters and grand masters on hundreds of visits.  She's around Jedi all the time and has no ability to block them.  "The Force works in mysterious ways" is a cop out.


----------



## Water Bob (May 7, 2016)

I find it believable, but then again, I like the Force as a mysterious, living thing.  Maybe the Force itself was actively hiding the twins from any who would sense them.  The Force created Anakin.  It seems plausible, in many scenes, that the Force has an agenda or somehow influences destiny.


----------



## Water Bob (May 7, 2016)

Here's a question.

Jango Fett must have gotten fabulously rich.  A remark was made to how well he was paid in Attack of the Clones.

Then, Fett got his head cut off.

So...what happened to all the dough?  Boba inherited the ship--that much is clear.  But, I never got the impression that Boba Fett was incredibly wealthy.

Where'd all the money go?


----------

