What is a hyperspace lane?

[Jlev]

So I was watching this movie from TOR:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeboxMqd ... re=mh_lolz

At time index 4:50 they say that mandalorians blockaded a major trade route from the core worlds to the outer rim worlds. It also states that the reduced influx of goods to the capital was so bad that food riots broke out.

What are these hyperspace lanes? Space is so large and empty why not just fly over them in hyperspace? Can starwars ships only travel in hyperspace through these precharted space lanes?


Thanks.

[Ire]

Their pretty much safe routes within space to avoid hazards within them

I remember a New Hope covered this

[Jlev]

Their pretty much safe routes within space to avoid hazards within them

I remember a New Hope covered this

That's what I thought as well, but what took me by surprise was how blockading them had such a huge impact on the inner core worlds. Makes it sound like moving large scale industrial supplies through space that isn't in a hyperspace lane isn't a feasible task.

[Havok]

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperlane

Wiki is OK for this one.

[Jlev]

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperlane

Wiki is OK for this one.

Thanks. I guess this leads me to another question.

What is the level of risk for a ship to go into hyperspace and doesn't use an established hyperlane? According to the TOR movie clip i posted the risk was so great that while the blockade was in effect, the senate was talking surrender to the sith and letting people start (food riots) in the streets instead of saying lets take the risk and have the fleet of transport ships travel on a non-hyperspace lane.

Am I wrong to conclude that there is a huge risk to life and limb if one goes into hyperspace without a space lane charted out?

[Lord Revan]

or if you don't want to read the Wiki article or don't understand it, they're essentially the hyperspace equilevant to highways, faster and safer then not using them but not the only way to travel in hyperspace.

[Imperial528]

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperlane

Wiki is OK for this one.

Thanks. I guess this leads me to another question.

What is the level of risk for a ship to go into hyperspace and doesn't use an established hyperlane? According to the TOR movie clip i posted the risk was so great that while the blockade was in effect, the senate was talking surrender to the sith and letting people start (food riots) in the streets instead of saying lets take the risk and have the fleet of transport ships travel on a non-hyperspace lane.

Am I wrong to conclude that there is a huge risk to life and limb if one goes into hyperspace without a space lane charted out?

It depends on the era and the ship, since as time has progressed technology advanced and more of the galaxy was charted and understood. Really early on it was either hyperspace lanes, following hyperspace beacons, or making tedious short jumps which were still risky. By the time of the Empire the beacons were completely obsolete and hyperspace lanes were, IIRC, just convenience for civilian ships but unneeded for travel in charted space and irrelevant to military operations outside of things like raiding enemy shipping.
Military craft have higher quality navigation equipment and hyperspace drives then most civilian ships so if they do run into an uncharted danger, their systems will warn them and they can go around it. Civilian craft attempting to do the same, unless heavily modified or of high quality, probably run the risk of being damaged, destroyed or of running out of fuel and not being in range of a resupply depot.

[Jlev]

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperlane

Wiki is OK for this one.

Thanks. I guess this leads me to another question.

What is the level of risk for a ship to go into hyperspace and doesn't use an established hyperlane? According to the TOR movie clip i posted the risk was so great that while the blockade was in effect, the senate was talking surrender to the sith and letting people start (food riots) in the streets instead of saying lets take the risk and have the fleet of transport ships travel on a non-hyperspace lane.

Am I wrong to conclude that there is a huge risk to life and limb if one goes into hyperspace without a space lane charted out?

It depends on the era and the ship, since as time has progressed technology advanced and more of the galaxy was charted and understood. Really early on it was either hyperspace lanes, following hyperspace beacons, or making tedious short jumps which were still risky. By the time of the Empire the beacons were completely obsolete and hyperspace lanes were, IIRC, just convenience for civilian ships but unneeded for travel in charted space and irrelevant to military operations outside of things like raiding enemy shipping.
Military craft have higher quality navigation equipment and hyperspace drives then most civilian ships so if they do run into an uncharted danger, their systems will warn them and they can go around it. Civilian craft attempting to do the same, unless heavily modified or of high quality, probably run the risk of being damaged, destroyed or of running out of fuel and not being in range of a resupply depot.

Thank you for explaining that.

[dworkin]

Perhaps you should check that questionable source, Star Wars IV: A New Hope.

Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it.

Han feels being fired upon by Imperial Star Destroyers was safer than making an incautious jump. This is the viewpoint of the archetypical rogue and risk taker. Imagine what a more conservative pilot carrying a bazillion credits of cargo thinks.

[Ahriman238]

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperlane

Wiki is OK for this one.

Thanks. I guess this leads me to another question.

What is the level of risk for a ship to go into hyperspace and doesn't use an established hyperlane? According to the TOR movie clip i posted the risk was so great that while the blockade was in effect, the senate was talking surrender to the sith and letting people start (food riots) in the streets instead of saying lets take the risk and have the fleet of transport ships travel on a non-hyperspace lane.

Am I wrong to conclude that there is a huge risk to life and limb if one goes into hyperspace without a space lane charted out?

They might have to take ten minutes to calculate a safe path, which can be a pain with four Star Destroyers on their asses.

[Lord Pounder]

or if you don't want to read the Wiki article or don't understand it, they're essentially the hyperspace equilevant to highways, faster and safer then not using them but not the only way to travel in hyperspace.

Also if you break down along an established hyperspace lane you are more likely to be able to radio for the Wars equivalent to AAA.

[aussiemuscle308]

That's what I thought as well, but what took me by surprise was how blockading them had such a huge impact on the inner core worlds. Makes it sound like moving large scale industrial supplies through space that isn't in a hyperspace lane isn't a feasible task.

Would hyperlanes be a fair comparison to Earth air pathways? ie you follow the route in managed airspace but can deviate once you out?

I guess blockading a planet would be like u-boats blockading UK during WW2, by scouting around and firing on anything that tries to get through? Some ships get through, but enough were sunk to create severe shortages.

[Lord Revan]

That's what I thought as well, but what took me by surprise was how blockading them had such a huge impact on the inner core worlds. Makes it sound like moving large scale industrial supplies through space that isn't in a hyperspace lane isn't a feasible task.

Would hyperlanes be a fair comparison to Earth air pathways? ie you follow the route in managed airspace but can deviate once you out?

I guess blockading a planet would be like u-boats blockading UK during WW2, by scouting around and firing on anything that tries to get through? Some ships get through, but enough were sunk to create severe shortages.

actually a better comparison would be Hyperlanes are like highways or roads with random course being the hyperspace equilevant of driving off-road, sure you can but it's alot slower doing it that way.

[Boeing 757]

What then is the actual physical issue which warrants the establishment of such "lanes" in space? Perhaps astrophysical phenomena like planetary bodies and black holes constitute some part of the need for making these hyperlanes, but is there a force such as gravity which can affect the performance of hyperdrive-equipped ships? So much is is implied by the novels which make gravity out to be a problem for ships as they are about to cross the lighstpeed barrier. I reckon that certain regions of the Galaxy which experience stronger gravitational fields either hinder ships from traveling faster than they could under best conditions, or affect the safety and performance of hyperdrive in some unknown way. That is merely a rough guess on my part. If I had more time, I would not mind to gather some sources together and try to come up with a better explanation.

[alcockell]

Gravity wells, nebulas and other areas too dangerous to transit, safe separation of spacecraft in transit to avoid collisions etc..

There appears to be a good breakdown of the properties of hyperspace in the SW universe here - http://www.theforce.net/swtc/hyperspace.html

On reading that document - especially the bit about "tunnelling" and collisions, it would appear that it's a bit like oceanic airspace on Earth - so spacecraft may not be aware enough of each other - and would need to be separated procedurally unless they had their own inertial guidance and avoidance kit. Military kit would have this - but not necessarily civilian.

Would appear that there is a 1-1 mapping re objects and phenomena in the sublight and FTL environments - and it's possible to collide with mass shadows.

So setting up hyperspace interstellar "airways" in known safe space, interconnected by terminal manoeuvre areas, integrating them as "oceanic tracks" into the intrastellar "airway" systems would mean civil and commercial flights could operate along safe corridors. Along with that comes the full ATC procedures and methodology to allow for safe passage of passengers and freight through that universe. ATC are responsible in the safe separation of all flights under their sectors.

NOTAMs or their in-universe equivalents would be announced about different air routes, eg if there was an altercation along one of them (the interstellar equivalent of some twonk with a mid-range SAM system taking out civilian airliners when they think they're targeting enemy transports - cos they don't see Mode S/C squawk data, just a skin return), air routes could be closed by the equivalent of EUROCONTROL... so flight plans could be rejected.

[biostem]

Is it possible that it could also be a matter of what areas are actively monitored for issues? In other words, maybe there are systems in place to check these lanes on a constant basis, for any changes which might affect their safety, whereas other areas are only periodically updated, so conditions could very well have changed since the last one was performed...

Thus, you "have to" travel at a slower speed in order to have enough response time in the event that there is some sort of obstacle in your path, whereas the established space lanes are already checking this stuff ahead of time. It's sort of similar to how micro-jumps have been used in some of the novels, but always with some hesitation.

[Thanas]

Hyperspace lanes are mainly about two things - increasing speed and safety from objects flying into it. Thus, on a good hyperspace lane it can take minutes which takes weeks on a bad lane. That is how the New Essential guide to worlds wrote it up and which makes the most sense IMO. Of course that book is most likely non-canon now since it borrows heavily from EU sources.

[Adam Reynolds]

That is how the New Essential guide to worlds wrote it up and which makes the most sense

Is that the same as The Essential Atlas or something else?

Of course that book is most likely non-canon now since it borrows heavily from EU sources

This is a slight digression from the thread subject, but isn't that true about literally every reference book that has currently been released? Even the reference books directly about the movies, such as the ICS and Visual dictionaries, also have this problem in that they are completely full of EU references. For a random example, the OT Visual Dictionary is full of references to WEG and the various Tales stories, including from IG-88 who, in one of the dumbest stories of all of the EU, successfully uploaded himself into the Second Death Star in an attempt to start a droid rebellion. So when the Rebels won the battle of Endor, they were actually stopping a droid rebellion rather than the Empire. While the VD doesn't directly mention this part of that story it references events that only occurred within the same story. How can IG-88 ambushing Boba Fett be canon without the rest of that story being canon?

Another element that will likely be non canon as well is the movie novelizations. The ROTS novelization in particular contradicts the Clone Wars series by being full of references to the original Clone Wars continuity that was written before ROTS.

It's just another sign of the mess that is the SW continuity with or without the Legends label.

[Simon_Jester]

My natural response is just to figure that any specific thing in the EU is canon until actually contradicted by one of the movies, and even if it isn't canon it's still a "could-have-happened" that serves to illustrates the limits of the technologically possible... unless statements about the technology are contradicted by the movies.

I.e. one of the Thrawn books has the big blue guy bolting cloaking devices to asteroids and putting them in orbit around Alliance-held Coruscant as a sort of minefield. It may be that events in the new movies contradict this story (say, because they're set thirty years after the original trilogy and portray the rebels as never having taken Coruscant, or because they portray Thrawn as having never lived). But I'd still assume that it would be physically possible in Star Wars to cloak asteroids and use them as a sort of minefield; just because Thrawn never did it doesn't mean no one else could have.
___________________________________

On the original topic, one point some people may be overlooking: to starve out a populated place, you don't have to make it physically impossible to get ships to that place. Take as an example WWII Britain, which was having its supplies strangled by German U-boats and other measures directed against its sea commerce.

There was never any danger of the Germans somehow physically closing the sea to British ships, as though a wall had been built around the island. Nor was there any imminent danger of the Germans somehow sinking all the British ships. And while the Germans did bomb and strafe and harass British ports, they never made it physically impossible for the British ships to dock and unload supplies.

BUT-

The need to protect the British freighters against the U-boats meant that the freighters had to follow evasive routes across the ocean, and had to stick together in large convoys for mutual protection. Waiting around for the convoy and evading known German submarine operations both slowed the freighters down. Slowing the freighters down means they can only make three round trips in the time it'd normally take them to make four, or two instead of three. Which means less supplies to Britain, which could theoretically cause starvation if it got bad enough.

Likewise, sinking some of the British ships meant that Britain could not solve the problem by building more ships- if each ship takes twice as long to make a round trip, building twice as many ships lets you keep importing the same amount of goods, but you can't do that if people sink your ships as fast as you can build them.

And finally, bombing and laying minefields in and around British ports meant that it took more time to unload a ship, because equipment for unloading things would get damaged, because ships had to pick their way carefully around the mines, and because workers were being harassed by bombs. Again, delays in unloading a ship mean each ship makes fewer round trips a year, which means less goods are imported.

So even though in theory, British freighters could "just sail around" the German submarines, and most of them were getting through just fine, and the British ports were still in operation despite all the mines and stuff... it was a hard economic time. And if it hadn't been for various factors (like good planning, the British having a large margin for error due to imports of goods other than food), then yes the British Isles might conceivably have faced starvation.

So it may be that Coruscant is dependent on such a great mass of food imports that even slowing down and disrupting the flow of trading vessels to Coruscant can cause them to starve.

Perhaps you should check that questionable source, Star Wars IV: A New Hope.

Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it.

Han feels being fired upon by Imperial Star Destroyers was safer than making an incautious jump. This is the viewpoint of the archetypical rogue and risk taker. Imagine what a more conservative pilot carrying a bazillion credits of cargo thinks.

Well, that was seemingly about using the navigation computer to properly analyze the route ahead of them- still, it does tend to suggest that hyperspace travel can be hazardous in the extreme if not done 'properly.'

[Ted C]

In the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode "Citadel Rescue" (part of a three episode arc, actually), they describe knowledge of a "hyperspace lane" from the heart of Republic territory to the heart of Separatist territory as a huge strategic advantage.

[darth_timon]

I figure that, in respect of hyperlanes, going off lane, as it were, can be at speed - but is inadvisable. There is greater risk associated with going at 100 miles per hour down country lanes than on a motorway. Obviously it's physically possible to do it, but it's also dangerous.

So lanes represent a safe option.

Lanes though, are a matter of accurate and ongoing scouting to deal with stellar drift and newly formed blackholes supernovae etc.

So with probes, sensor scans and scoutships, getting around outside of lanes is doable. Not easy and it might add days or weeks to the journey but doable.

[Arawn Fenn]

In the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode "Citadel Rescue" (part of a three episode arc, actually), they describe knowledge of a "hyperspace lane" from the heart of Republic territory to the heart of Separatist territory as a huge strategic advantage.

And hyperspace lanes are a point of contention in the TCW film.