Why do people continue to insist Star Wars ships are faster??

[Draculasaurus]

Maybe Star Wars is set in a much smaller Galaxy than ours.
They travel from Tatooine (outer rim of the galaxy) to Coruscant (inner galactic core) in no time flat, unlike a Voyager style lifetime journey.
Either Star Wars ships are faster or they have a teensy weensy galaxy.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I think it's possible that making the jump to light speed means to go to and transcend the light speed barrier into hyperspace which is actually x fast not just the speed of light.

That’s a cop out really, why would they do that? Do you go around telling people you go ‘crawling speed’ on the motorway?

I've heard it said that traffic is moving at freeway speeds around here to generally mean you are travelling faster than 55 MPH.

Since when has terminology been consistent (in most) Sci-Fi.

Go back to TOS and they can cover thousands of light years in days or not depending on the needs of the story. Head to TMP and they can go around 4ly/day by VOY that's dropped to 3ly/day.

I swear there was an episode of DS9 where they went back to Earth in like a day.

 

[General_Phoenix]

Yeah it seems that in Star Wars they can travel anywhere in their galaxy on a whim. They are even able to fly outside their galaxy and get a nice view (ESB). Tatooine (outer rim)to Coruscant (core) is no problem. When Piett fears that Han and co. escaped via hyperspace he tells Vader they could be on the other side of the galaxy.

Also the folks in the Star Wars universe have been travelling the stars for a very long time. Even 3,000 BBY they had hyperspace capabilities and such.

 

[Kor]

Nope. Inadmissible.
What does Han know how fast he's going anyway?
He didn't even finish school and he thinks parsecs are a unit of time...

As if the parsec thing wasn't explained enough in the SW books, etc., the new movie "Solo" finally puts this whole thing to rest on the big screen, in all its irrefutable canonical glory. But I won't spoil the details here.

Kor

 

[Spot261]

That’s a cop out really, why would they do that? Do you go around telling people you go ‘crawling speed’ on the motorway?

Well, if we really think this is remotely interesting, the real reason people come to that conclusion is because in SW they see ships cross an entire galaxy in a matter of hours, regardless of the terminology, whereas in trek they take weeks to navigate one tiny corner of one.

Light doesn't travel that fast, even a long time ago in a galaxy far away, nor for that matter does warp speed a la Trek. The only things we see do that in the Trek universe are slipstream and transwarp.

But let's face it, it's a really silly question to worry about.

 

[Marc]

Well, if we really think this is remotely interesting, the real reason people come to that conclusion is because in SW they see ships cross an entire galaxy in a matter of hours, regardless of the terminology, whereas in trek they take weeks to navigate one tiny corner of one.

There's nothing on the screen to indicated the speed of SW ships and probably not much in the books. One of Zahn's Thrawn trilogy books mentions gives an indication in terms of light years covered in a period of time but not away ore any others. It's been a while since I read them so can't remember the exact details but checked in the TNG technical manual and they were a lot faster than federation starships.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Guild Navigators from Dune fold space- travelling....without moving. They win!

 

[Spot261]

There's nothing on the screen to indicated the speed of SW ships and probably not much in the books.

There is really, the statement "a long time ago in a galaxy far away" gives us a clue, it all happens within our universe, very remotely from ourselves, but nonetheless within a frame of reference which has the same constants we know and love.

That means the speed of light is the same, it also means gravity has the same parameters. In other words all the various coefficients of physics remain as we know them here and now, which put parameters on what is physically possible, including the scale and density of a galaxy which will maintain coherence. Their galaxy may well be smaller than ours, but not so small as to be only a few light hours across.

That speed of light simply isn't anywhere remotely near fast enough to allow people to cross such a galaxy in anything short of thousands upon thousands of years, much less in the miniscule time periods we see where people don't even need to bother sleeping or changing clothes. Therefore we know whatever the characters mean when they say "light speed" it must be faster than the literal speed of light, much faster in fact than the warp speeds we see portrayed in trek which require at the very least decades to achieve such a trip.

 

[Kor]

In SW, the term "Light Speed" is simply used as a slang term for travel in the hyperspace realm, no matter what the actual speed may be.

It's like how we use the word "Photoshopped" to describe an edited digital image, whether or not Adobe Photoshop software was actually used in the process.

Or something.

Kor

 

[Spot261]

In SW, the term "Light Speed" is simply used as a slang term for travel in the hyperspace realm, no matter what the actual speed may be.

It's like how we use the word "Photoshopped" to describe an edited digital image, whether or not Adobe Photoshop software was actually used in the process.

Or something.

Kor

Or the way we "hoover" a house, even if we've never bought a Hoover product....

 

[Jinn]

Light is obviously faster in the Star Wars universe than in the Star Trek universe.

 

[Spot261]

Light is obviously faster in the Star Wars universe than in the Star Trek universe.

Isn't it the same universe?

 

[Jinn]

Isn't it the same universe?

The one where Spock has the goatee? Yeah, that's the one.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Light is obviously faster in the Star Wars universe than in the Star Trek universe.

Varying the speed of light by even a few percent causes a host of other problems such as making stars unable to form, unable to fuse hydrogen, or fusing hydrogen too quickly, making atom bonds either too strong or too unstable, altering mass-energy equivalence (as this depends on the speed of light squared) and so on. Altering the speed would also require changing the eye's photoreceptors and focussing mechanisms from those that have evolved in our universe. Perhaps there are other combinations of values for the physical constants but the values in our universe appear to be very finely tuned. Of course, if the constants were different, life might well not be able to evolve to measure them.

 

[Jinn]

Varying the speed of light by even a few percent causes a host of other problems such as making stars unable to form, unable to fuse hydrogen, or fusing hydrogen too quickly, making atom bonds either too strong or too unstable, altering mass-energy equivalence (as this depends on the speed of light squared) and so on. Altering the speed would also require changing the eye's photoreceptors and focussing mechanisms from those that have evolved in our universe. Perhaps there are other combinations of values for the physical constants but the values in our universe appear to be very finely tuned. Of course, if the constants were different, life might well not be able to evolve to measure them.

The Star Wars universe got the force, I'm sure they'll be fine.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The Star Wars universe got the force, I'm sure they'll be fine.

All Dog's children got midichlorians. Hallelujah.

 

[MacLeod]

I think it's possible that making the jump to light speed means to go to and transcend the light speed barrier into hyperspace which is actually x fast not just the speed of light.


I've heard it said that traffic is moving at freeway speeds around here to generally mean you are travelling faster than 55 MPH.


I swear there was an episode of DS9 where they went back to Earth in like a day.

"Homefront" / "Paradise Lost" might be the episode(s) you are thinking of.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Do we know when Star Wars ships go light speed, they are truly ignoring relativity?

That would finally explain why in the original Star Wars, they referred to Jedi as an 'Ancient religion'.

 

[Marsden]

"My pretend space ships go faster than your pretend space ships!"

"Them's fightin' words."

(followed by a lot of slapping for 30 seconds and then the sounds of inhalers and puffing.)

 

[Set Harth]

I think it's possible that making the jump to light speed means to go to and transcend the light speed barrier into hyperspace which is actually x fast not just the speed of light.

It's more than possible, it's unavoidable given what we see in the films.

There's nothing on the screen to indicated the speed of SW ships

There are a few things. There are various lines of dialogue that weigh in on the issue, however broadly, and there are inferences that can be made based on what is depicted on screen.

They are even able to fly outside their galaxy and get a nice view (ESB).

I'm not sure that thing is actually the GFFA. For one, it's moving way too fast. But we do know from AOTC that there are satellite galaxies and extragalactic planets.