Hyperdrive Question

[AidanMcfay]

What would happen if the main power to the ship were to be shorted out(If possible) while in Hyperspace.

(My friend is running a Star Wars campaign in our hometown and this happened in our session.)

[Deathstalker]

Mostly likely the ship would revert to realspace, dropping from hyperspace. As far as I know, the hyperdrive needs constant power, and with loss of power comes loss of drive. On the plus side, hyperspace travel needs to be clear of obstacles, so once you revert to realspace, you'll have a clear path, assuming you don't somehow manage to change direction.

[AidanMcfay]

Thats what I thought as well. But our GM had us stuck in Hyperspace untill we got the power working. He also tryed to tell me it was computers that brought us out of Hyperspace because of Interdictors....

When I told him otherwise he went on about "Gm's always right."

[Surlethe]

Mostly likely the ship would revert to realspace, dropping from hyperspace. As far as I know, the hyperdrive needs constant power, and with loss of power comes loss of drive. On the plus side, hyperspace travel needs to be clear of obstacles, so once you revert to realspace, you'll have a clear path, assuming you don't somehow manage to change direction.

Not so. Hyperspace does not require constant power to remain in it; the hyperdrive needs power in order to make the jump between hyperspace and realspace, but remaining in hyperspace simply means that your speed relative to the galaxy is greater than c. There's no reason to think that you need to do work to maintain a constant speed.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Tachyons cannot transit back into tardyons without a hyperdrive. A ship in hyperspace will tend to lose energy to drag and accelerate to infinite speed, which of course results in the dismemberment and destruction of the ship as a meaningful entity, killing the crew.

[AidanMcfay]

Mostly likely the ship would revert to realspace, dropping from hyperspace. As far as I know, the hyperdrive needs constant power, and with loss of power comes loss of drive. On the plus side, hyperspace travel needs to be clear of obstacles, so once you revert to realspace, you'll have a clear path, assuming you don't somehow manage to change direction.

Not so. Hyperspace does not require constant power to remain in it; the hyperdrive needs power in order to make the jump between hyperspace and realspace, but remaining in hyperspace simply means that your speed relative to the galaxy is greater than c. There's no reason to think that you need to do work to maintain a constant speed.

But wouldnt the loss of power also constitute a loss of speed, this of couse is going on the assumption that power would be required to keep your speed in hyperspace up.

[Surlethe]

But wouldnt the loss of power also constitute a loss of speed, this of couse is going on the assumption that power would be required to keep your speed in hyperspace up.

First of all, you're taking as a premise the statement I'm contesting. Second, you're unaware of the definition of power. Power is simply the rate of work; if power drops to zero, then that simply means your reactor is no longer producing energy. Just because you're unable to do any work certainly doesn't mean that your speed will suddenly drop to zero relative to the galaxy; it simply means that you won't be able to increase or decrease your kinetic energy, which means that your acceleration will drop to zero.

The upshot of all this is that you won't be able to transit back into realspace, because accelerating back down to near c requires energy. In fact, small collisions with cosmic dust will slowly cause you to release energy and accelerate you until you get the power back online and are able to drop from hyperspace.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Particles traveling less than c move more slowly when they lose kinetic energy. For example, a bullet fired from a gun in the atmosphere loses kinetic energy to friction with the air, which causes it to lose velocity until all energy is lost to friction and it is at rest (the ground usually supplies the last of this friction, of course). In a vacuum, theoretically a bullet could travel at constant velocity forever because there is no drag for it to lose kinetic energy. So constant power is not necessary to keep a starship traveling at constant speed in space (in reality there is always some gas in the interstellar medium that causes drag and objects in space can lose or gain kinetic energy from gravitational interaction with massive objects; the sheer inertia of large spacecraft make these effects usually small).

However, acceleration incurs larger and larger energy cost as velocity increases to meaningful fractions of the speed of light, c. This is because of special relativity and why it is impossible for an object with mass to accelerate to c, as it would take infinite energy.

However, objects with mass may travel faster than c, they simply cannot interact with reference frames where they could transfer information in violation of causality, nor can they deaccelerate to c. So objects that travel faster than light must gain energy to move more slowly because it causes them to approach lightspeed. Losing kinetic energy to drag would cause them to accelerate. Whereas an object traveling slower than light has zero relativistic kinetic energy when it is at rest, objects traveling faster than light have zero mass-energy when they travel at infinite speed. Measured thrust in hyperspace is necessary to keep a controlled course and defeat drag - keep the ship slower -, or the vessel will be torn apart.

[AidanMcfay]

I understand the difference of power and energy, I just replaced the word energy with power, my mistake.

[AidanMcfay]

Particles traveling less than c move more slowly when they lose kinetic energy. For example, a bullet fired from a gun in the atmosphere loses kinetic energy to friction with the air, which causes it to lose velocity until all energy is lost to friction and it is at rest (the ground usually supplies the last of this friction, of course). In a vacuum, theoretically a bullet could travel at constant velocity forever because there is no drag for it to lose kinetic energy. So constant power is not necessary to keep a starship traveling at constant speed in space (in reality there is always some gas in the interstellar medium that causes drag and objects in space can lose or gain kinetic energy from gravitational interaction with massive objects; the sheer inertia of large spacecraft make these effects usually small).

However, acceleration incurs larger and larger energy cost as velocity increases to meaningful fractions of the speed of light, c. This is because of special relativity and why it is impossible for an object with mass to accelerate to c, as it would take infinite energy.

However, objects with mass may travel faster than c, they simply cannot interact with reference frames where they could transfer information in violation of causality, nor can they deaccelerate to c. So objects that travel faster than light must gain energy to move more slowly because it causes them to approach lightspeed. Losing kinetic energy to drag would cause them to accelerate. Whereas an object traveling slower than light has zero relativistic kinetic energy when it is at rest, objects traveling faster than light have zero mass-energy when they travel at infinite speed. Measured thrust in hyperspace is necessary to keep a controlled course and defeat drag - keep the ship slower -, or the vessel will be torn apart.

Is Hyperspace considered Vacuum?

[Illuminatus Primus]

Sure, hyperspace is just the universe viewed from the perspective of a tachyon. Relativity means that all reference frames are relative. Relative to a guy aboard a ship in hyperspace, his starship is completely normal; it is traveling relative to him at zero speed. Meanwhile all the stars and gases moving past the ship as it travels appear to be moving at faster than light away from the ship. It looks blue in hyperspace ahead of the ship, which is consistent with the blue-shifted ghost image you'd expect to see of tachyonic matter. The ships aft should be illuminated by red shifted ghost images trailing behind the apparent paths of the rest of the universe.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I recall the BFC books where they ejected Nil Spaar out while the Intimidator was transiting through hyperspace. The Imperial officer mentioned that the last time they toyed around with the idea of launching missiles in hyperspace, nothing was found. Essentially the object remained in hyperspace.

[Surlethe]

I understand the difference of power and energy, I just replaced the word energy with power, my mistake.

That doesn't change my point, which is that if you can't produce energy, then there's no way you're going to be able to ramp down to c to jump out of hyperspace; you're simply going to remain at a constant velocity, possibly accelerating from drag.

[Cykeisme]

Here's an excellent link on Curtis Saxton's site..
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/hyperspace.html
He has a PHd in theoretical astrophysics iirc, and he's posited a good model for hyperspace travel.

Losing power while still tachyonic would indeed be very dangerous, but I would imagine that engineering common sense dictates that all ships would have AT LEAST an independent capcitor (energy storage device) of some sort that holds enough energy for at least one reversion to realspace. This capacitor would always be charged before entering hyperspace.
Larger ships may have backup drives good for at least one realspace reversion.

[Ritterin Sophia]

He also tryed to tell me it was computers that brought us out of Hyperspace because of Interdictors....

He's correct about this, when computers detect a mass shadow, a safety kicks which brings you out of Hyperspace. However, you could probably bypass it by using Computer Use or Disable Device check.

When I told him otherwise he went on about "Gm's always right."

I make my own addition to GM's always right, and it's, 'unless the GM is a moron and wants to ignore canon". However, he is correct in both cases, it appears.

[Surlethe]

He also tryed to tell me it was computers that brought us out of Hyperspace because of Interdictors....

He's correct about this, when computers detect a mass shadow, a safety kicks which brings you out of Hyperspace. However, you could probably bypass it by using Computer Use or Disable Device check.

Yes. This is how Han made the Kessel run in as short a distance as he did. Computers can be disabled to jump in a gravity well, as well; IIRC, there's one instance where the Falcon went to hyperspace while still in a planet's atmosphere to escape the shield.

[freker]

but every object with mass has a "shadow" in hyperspace, while the small object have practically no effect on the ship, the larger object (planets and star) have.

so if main power is offline and thus the computer can't take the ship out of hyperspace, the drag of the object will cause the ship to accelerate untill it falls apart.

and the path before the ship is free only until the place where you were heading, which is mostly near a solar system.
so you're in big trouble when the ship loses power in hyperspace

[freker]

another question:

in the sw novel "the cristal star" a complete artificial planet moves to hyperspace.

say if that planet gets stuck in hyperspace, would it cause a "shadow" effect in real space?

[Surlethe]

another question:

in the sw novel "the cristal star" a complete artificial planet moves to hyperspace.

say if that planet gets stuck in hyperspace, would it cause a "shadow" effect in real space?

I don't see why not. Being in hyperspace doesn't mean it doesn't exist in realspace; it simply means that you're traveling faster than light with respect to the galaxy.

[Crazedwraith]

Here's a thought: death star ands hyperspace capable planets (such as Zoma Sekot) have enough mass to cast mass shadows, right?

Does that mean the Death Star has a natural interdictor effect?

And if hyperdrive's don't work in said fields, how come they can go into hyperspac at all? shoudn't their own mass shadow prevent it?

[Knife]

Here's a thought: death star ands hyperspace capable planets (such as Zoma Sekot) have enough mass to cast mass shadows, right?

Does that mean the Death Star has a natural interdictor effect?

And if hyperdrive's don't work in said fields, how come they can go into hyperspac at all? shoudn't their own mass shadow prevent it?

Its not that hyperdrives CAN'T work in a gravity field, rather it's a safty device to drop out when one is too close preventing a ship that's going FTL from slamming into a planet (ref Han's tirade in ANH) bad for the ship and bad for the planet.

[Surlethe]

Here's a thought: death star ands hyperspace capable planets (such as Zoma Sekot) have enough mass to cast mass shadows, right?

Yes. It's been recently calculated that the Death Star has a mass at least equal to that of Mercury.

Does that mean the Death Star has a natural interdictor effect?

Sure.

And if hyperdrive's don't work in said fields, how come they can go into hyperspac at all? shoudn't their own mass shadow prevent it?

Hyperdrives actually do work in gravity fields *, although you have to override computer controls to do so. Presumably, the Death Star's hyperdrive is configured so that it ignores its own gravitational signature.

*: "A common misconception is the belief that hyperdrive cannot be initiated in gravity wells. This is actually untrue- although it is not recommended, it is possible to initiate a hyperjump in the gravity well of a planet. The Millenium Falcon actually went to hyperspace inside the atmosphere of a planet to escape Byss in the split-second before the planetary energy shield closed on them (ref. Dark Empire). Again, we stress that this is not recommended for safety reasons, but it is possible."

[Gustav32Vasa]

Why then is it impossible to jump while in a Interdictors field?

[Knife]

Hyperdrives actually do work in gravity fields *, although you have to override computer controls to do so. Presumably, the Death Star's hyperdrive is configured so that it ignores its own gravitational signature.

*: "A common misconception is the belief that hyperdrive cannot be initiated in gravity wells. This is actually untrue- although it is not recommended, it is possible to initiate a hyperjump in the gravity well of a planet. The Millenium Falcon actually went to hyperspace inside the atmosphere of a planet to escape Byss in the split-second before the planetary energy shield closed on them (ref. Dark Empire). Again, we stress that this is not recommended for safety reasons, but it is possible."

Yeah, it's easier to just think of it as a kill switch rather than anything else.

[Surlethe]

Why then is it impossible to jump while in a Interdictors field?

Because the kill switch is automatic, and it takes time to override it?