"She'll make point five past lightspeed"

March 15, 2020 6:00 AM

How Fast is the Millennium Falcon? A Thought Experiment. By Chris Lough at Tor.com. Bonus link from the article: How the Falcon stacks up against some other famous vessels.
posted by valkane (35 comments total)

Since we don’t have any testimony as to how fast the Falcon can go

"She's the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy!"

I think the more serious question is what level of energy is required to move the Death Star at faster than light speed.
posted by nubs at 6:27 AM on March 15, 2020 [3 favorites]

I mean, the serious answer to all of this is that things in the Star Wars universe move at the speed of the plot.
posted by nubs at 6:29 AM on March 15, 2020 [12 favorites]

Not impressed.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:34 AM on March 15, 2020 [12 favorites]

I hadn't really thought about it before, but the speed of the Battlestar Galactica is basically unlimited, constrained only by the need to know where they are going. Which I suppose is a metaphor.
posted by ckape at 6:39 AM on March 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

Did you ever really look at your Han?
posted by chavenet at 6:50 AM on March 15, 2020 [7 favorites]

I watched every single star wars film this year (except the newest... Just cant bring myself to do it).

My take is that star wars hyperspace is a sort of... Wormhole waiting room. It seems that when people jump, they are not so conserned about speed as they are about direction and timing.
posted by rebent at 6:50 AM on March 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

I suspect that Douglas Adams having written for Doctor Who made sure that Zaphod's ship was at least as fast as the TARDIS. But, in addition to being fast the TARDIS is also bigger on the inside than on the outside, which just feels like cheating. Even though the Falcon suffers from the same thing.
posted by valkane at 6:58 AM on March 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

Ok so how many parsecs in a lightsaber? And were the Jedi's actually the bad guys?
posted by sammyo at 7:25 AM on March 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

I mean, by definition, any portal-type system (i.e. the Stargate) is faster than any ship.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:29 AM on March 15, 2020 [3 favorites]

Imagine a ship flying at faster than light through a portal!

Whoa!
posted by hippybear at 7:34 AM on March 15, 2020 [4 favorites]

Here's the better question: in Revenge of the Sith, we are lead to understand that the duels between Yoda and Palpy on Coruscant and Obi-Wan and Anakin on Mustafar happen more or less simultaneously.

At the end of the duel on Coruscant, Palpy leaves to go rescue Anakin. According to the map in the link article, Coruscant is in square L9; Mustafar is in L19 - a pretty incredible distance to cover while Anakin smolders.
posted by nubs at 7:50 AM on March 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

Uhhh, one of those palps was a clone dusts off hands
posted by Reyturner at 8:40 AM on March 15, 2020 [5 favorites]

The end of Revenge of the Sith is a big signifier, yeah. For me, Rogue One basically confirmed travel times in the Star Wars universe are utterly arbitrary.

In previous movies, you get the sense that interplanetary distances take at least, IDK, some time to traverse. Hours, or a day or two maybe. But in Rogue One we see Rebels can call in starfighter strikes from one star system to the next and have them there in minutes. Unless all the planets in Rogue One are basically in the same neighborhood, that says a lot.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:19 AM on March 15, 2020

Just imagine sitting in the theater watching a Star Wars movie, where the Falcon has to go from A to B, a very long distance, and the movie becomes like one of those hours long real time train videos from Norway, except this would be just blank, empty space. Physical realism, of sorts, is only for the patient and dogmatic.
posted by njohnson23 at 10:08 AM on March 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

Yeah, they're frustratingly arbitrary to anyone with even a hint of hard sci-fi mindset. I've written travel-heavy Star Wars fanfiction and there's basically zero consistent canon indication of how long these distances should take to travel. You just have to make it up.
posted by potrzebie at 11:03 AM on March 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

...the movie becomes like one of those hours long real time train videos from Norway...

Immediately thinks how this could be a huge potential hit with folks who fall in the intersection of Star Wars and ASMR.

And that got me thinking of videos of Chewbaca repairing the Falcon. No talking, just maybe the occasional Wookie vocalization.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:18 AM on March 15, 2020 [4 favorites]

Will nobody think of the poor contracted meters? Relativistic speed kills.
posted by wierdo at 11:42 AM on March 15, 2020

So, according to the article, the Falcon goes one light year in 3 seconds. But it can't go faster because, um, that might be too fast to react to things.

FWIW, at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, people are looking at the entire galaxy from quite a distance. (There's a discussion here on whether it's a galaxy or not; Leland Chee and Irvin Kershner say it is.) They're easily half a million light years out, 10 times the distance considered in this piece, so it would take a week or two to get there.
posted by zompist at 12:20 PM on March 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

I've written travel-heavy Star Wars fanfiction and there's basically zero consistent canon indication of how long these distances should take to travel. You just have to make it up.

Be of good cheer: everything that Lucas or Abrams or Disney has ever told you about Star Wars was also made up.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:22 PM on March 15, 2020 [7 favorites]

FWIW, at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, people are looking at the entire galaxy from quite a distance.

And you can see the damn thing rotating.

I think the basic thing people have to deal with is that physics in Star Wars is different from real-world physics. Aside from the fact there's an additional fundamental force, there's the fact that the speed of light is equal to the speed of sound. Spaceflight velocities are in the hundreds of miles per hour, and planets are close enough that those velocities can get you there in a matter of weeks.

So all that being said, it's pretty obvious that travel times are not really based on distance. There seem to be hyperspace lanes that are faster than other ones, much like taking a freeway is faster than surface streets.
posted by happyroach at 12:48 PM on March 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

It assures us that the Falcon traveling at top speed would have been a simple affair since the route is mostly established and clear of stars, supernovas, asteroid fields, and other objects that would require trickier navigation.

Let me clue you in to a protip: You don't need to follow an "established space lane" to avoid tricky navigation! Assuming that the Star Wars galaxy is a spiral galaxy similar in density to our Milky Way, navigation is incredibly simple--almost impossibly easy--because everything is spread out and you won't bump into anything. Simply point in the direction of your destination and step on the accelerator, and you'll arrive in one piece without any crashes! (Even in asteroid belts, the individual objects will be separated by one million kilometers on average.)

Science fiction often relies on the trope of space lanes--by necessity, of course, to keep things suspenseful--but in a realistic scenario of intra-galactic navigation, nobody would give a rat's a** about staying clear of "stars, supernovas and asteroid fields."

Unless you count dark matter space is an empty and boring place.
posted by Gordion Knott at 12:58 PM on March 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

Assuming that the Star Wars galaxy is a spiral galaxy similar in density to our Milky Way, navigation is incredibly simple

See there's your problem right there. It's pretty damn obvious the Star Wars galaxy is nothing like our own, from the basic physics on up.
posted by happyroach at 1:31 PM on March 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

Also, why is it called "Star Wars" when the stars aren't doing any warring?* It should be "Spaceguy Wars".

*Yeah, yeah, you have the 1 and a half "Death Stars", but these are also misnomers. Should be "Frustratingly Vulnerable Laser Moons" or similar.

Fight me!
posted by Anoplura at 1:43 PM on March 15, 2020 [3 favorites]

Science fiction often relies on the trope of space lanes--by necessity, of course, to keep things suspenseful--but in a realistic scenario of intra-galactic navigation, nobody would give a rat's a** about staying clear of "stars, supernovas and asteroid fields."

Ahem, gravity. You get too close to a star/planet/moon/etc. and you need to expend fuel or energy to stay on course. Better to plot a course that takes this into account and uses it your advantage.
posted by Anoplura at 1:48 PM on March 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

How many beans could you fit beneath the plates of the hold of the Millennium Falcon?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:39 PM on March 15, 2020

A dozen fuzzy dice?
posted by clavdivs at 5:03 PM on March 15, 2020

*"chance cubes"
posted by ArgentCorvid at 5:21 PM on March 15, 2020 [3 favorites]

navigation is incredibly simple--almost impossibly easy--because everything is spread out and you won't bump into anything.

One of my favorite moments in The Orville is when they contemplate going through a spatial rift/wormhole and someone gives the standard "but we don't know where the other side is, it could be in the middle of a star!" warning and the captain responds that given the enormity of space, the odds were in their favor not to run into a star or a planet.

Funny, I don't see the Orville and it's Quantum Drive in that list, and I know there's an episode where the writers deliberately drop enough information to calculate the ship's speed relative to the size of the galaxy.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:57 PM on March 15, 2020

Let's hope that spatial rifts are indeed entirely random processes, eh?
posted by wierdo at 6:35 PM on March 15, 2020

[pops head in doorway to basement] "Okay-ay, wrap it up and wash your hands, dinner's on the table in FIVE minutes!"
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:45 PM on March 15, 2020 [4 favorites]

There seem to be hyperspace lanes that are faster than other ones, much like taking a freeway is faster than surface streets.

So you are saying that they can go...plaid?
posted by Literaryhero at 2:19 AM on March 16, 2020

It's silly to pooh-pooh the notion that having some kind of coherent theory of space travel in Star Wars necessitates watching them fly in real time. Would you demand National Lampoon's Vacation be a gruelling 48 hour marathon? All it requires is the writer having a mental image of how far away things are and how long it takes to get there, then shaping and editing the plot accordingly. It's not hyperlight science.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:26 PM on March 16, 2020

Here's the better question: in Revenge of the Sith, we are lead to understand that the duels between Yoda and Palpy on Coruscant and Obi-Wan and Anakin on Mustafar happen more or less simultaneously.

The two duels happen at the same time in Mustafar's reference frame. When Palpy arrives on Mustafar the duel with Yoda happened months ago from his point of view.
posted by straight at 5:33 PM on March 16, 2020

Unless you count dark matter space is an empty and boring place.

"Assume a galaxy that has no dark matter. And a spherical Wookie co-pilot."

Of course dark matter gets in the way of hyperspace travel. Duh.
posted by straight at 6:15 PM on March 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

The end of Revenge of the Sith is a big signifier, yeah. For me, Rogue One basically confirmed travel times in the Star Wars universe are utterly arbitrary.

This is why impressive feats of astro navigation are measured in distance (parsecs) and not time.
posted by Reyturner at 7:18 PM on March 18, 2020