StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Ok hear as some things we know an Acclamator troop transport can travel 250 000 light years with out needing to refuel(EDIT and since this is also a war ship they probley could do better with a new desinge).

The distance from the milkeyway and its nearest galaxy is 179 000 light years. If we assume that the starwars galaxy is about the same as ours this means a military troop transport could make inter galactic trip. Also if we assume the modest figure of 10 million times c for its speed it can do it in just over 6 ½ days.

So my question is why have we never heard of inter galactic travel happening in any of the films or EU novels(not counting the Vong) and with inter galactic travel possible why were the Vong suck a surprise.

Ps sorry if there has been inter galactic travle and I have missed it.

Well, for one, if you have a distance of 179,000 LY, and an unrefueled range of 250,000 LY, it would be a one-way trip, since getting there and back would require a range of at least 358,000 LY. It was attempted with the Outward Bound project, with Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth. That mission was destroyed somewhere around Chiss Space by Palpatine and Thrawn working independently from each other.

But whats the closest galaxy in the Star Wars universe? That distance may be too big for them.

The bounty hunter anthology has Zuckuss and 4-lom discussing how the rebel's are hiding beyond the galactic rim, and how they must have been truly desperate to pass through it and how they lost many ship's on the transition.
-> Apparently there's heavy "turbulence" or a barrier between the the galaxies.

there's a "Hyperspace disturbance" surrounding the galaxy, which is why everyone was so surprised when the Vong came in from the edge of the galaxy and started invading.

edit: I'm pretty sure a modified ship, perhaps with extra fuel stores or another hyperdrive, could make a round-trip, but this is just spur of the moment thinking.

IIRC, the AOTC:ITW says that Kamino was actually located in a dwarf satellite galaxy near the SW galaxy.

The existence of the two smaller satellite galaxies is well-know; they are clearly visible in the holographic map of the galaxy that Obi-Wan looks at after Dexter asks him to look for Kamino.
However, I don't recall, but wasn't Obi-Wan Kamino shown to be in the main galaxy?



The whole idea of there being a "hyperspace turbulence barrier" doesn't really sound right. Gravitational "shadows" from realspace bodies are the only impediments to hyperspace travel that we know of, and the space between galaxies should be free of those.
Unless, of course, there's supposedly something surrounding galaxies, and between them- dark matter or somesuch- that makes hyperspace travel difficult.

Cykeisme wrote:The existence of the two smaller satellite galaxies is well-know; they are clearly visible in the holographic map of the galaxy that Obi-Wan looks at after Dexter asks him to look for Kamino.
However, I don't recall, but wasn't Obi-Wan Kamino shown to be in the main galaxy?

IIRC, he pointed to an area that looked like it was above the main galaxy, yet below a dwarf galaxy. If someone could grab a screen shot of when Obi-Wan was pointing, I'd be greatful (I currently can't play DVDs on my computer).

But Wong does have the basic picture on his site: link.

Though most of the other maps I come across of the SW galaxy put Kamino's location close to Bothan Space.

Techno_Union wrote:IIRC, the AOTC:ITW says that Kamino was actually located in a dwarf satellite galaxy near the SW galaxy.

There's also that IGBC station located outside the main galaxy. It was talked about in the RotS ICS.

It's distinctly possible that extragalactic travel isn't widespread because there's simply no incentive to do it it. The same topic was discussed earlier, here. Check it out, please.
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=70455

The hyperspace barrier is a myth. They talk about it in tales of the bounty hunters, but they don't actually go beyond the Rim. So, that heresay. The supposed barrier did not stop: the Vong, the Outbound Filght mission, The Banking Clan, or Luke & Leia in an older Marvel comic. It is the galactic equivalent of sail off the edge of the world.

There would have to be some type of physical obstruction to prevent hyperspace travel, and Real Galaxies have no physical boundary. There are dark gas clouds, and dark matter orbiting the galactic disk. But passing through it can not be any more difficult than passing through the gas clouds in the disk's spiral arms.

Now to the original question. If the intergalactic distance in SW are like they are here in our part of the universe then the distance to the nearest spherical dwarf galaxy is a mere 60,000 light years. But a galaxy like that is not likely to have any advance life, at least by most theories. The Distance to the nearest large spiral galaxy is over 2 million light years! Well outside the range of normal hyperspace travel.

One could imagine that a very large merchant ship that has had most of it space converted to fuel storage, could make such a trip; hyperspace is certainly fast enough to make it doable in a lifetime.

the Outbound Filght mission

As has been said, Outbound Flight was destroyed while it was still in Chiss Space, although the existance of the mission at all suggested that they thought they could make it through.

Which, was my point.

Well, the Wilky Way has a ring of stars that supposedly encircle it[1]. as well as 12 dwarf satellite galaxies[2], One of which is in the process of being eaten by our galaxy.[3]

I think it's just that nobody bothers to go the distance because the SW Galaxy is isolated, and most likely is NOT in some sort of a supercluster.

If there IS some sort of "Hyperspace Barrier" then my bets are that it is confined to the galactic plane, allowing for the Vong to enter off of the plane.

Glimmervoid wrote: The distance from the milkeyway and its nearest galaxy is 179 000 light years.

Our closest galaxy is Andromeda. It is 2.2 million light years away. If the star wars galaxy is anything like that, then other galaxies are out of range.

Andromeda distance from Milky Way

Andromeda is the nearest non-satellite galaxy.

That post may have been referring to the Small Magellenic Cloud. Which fits that distance number quite nicely.

If you want to get semantic, technically the nearest galaxy is the Canis Major Dwarf, at 25,000 ly. However it is a dwarf satellite galaxy, that is mostly swallowed by the Milky Way.

Actually, he brings up a point that hadn't really been considered - we assumed that they simply chose not to go beyond, and that the idea that they couldn't was bunk. It's partly true - they could go out there and the hyperspace barrier was bunk. But they couldn't get back. It would be like trying to cross the pacific on a log raft.

To go out there would require special craft with massive fuel reserves - your hypserdrive range will be dicated by your energy stores. Hyperdrive is an energy effect drive (OTICS), so your total fuel energy divided by the power consumed Multiplied by your speed would give you the range. But the power consumed wold be dependent ont he speed and some unknown factor unique to each class of ship (or modified ship)

So now for some more brain work. Pass me the Jack Daniel's.

To kinda summarize some of the points brought up here and in the other thread, it seems that extragalactic exploration isn't common mostly because:

A)The gain doesn't justify expending the fuel necessary to get there and back. You have one galaxy which isn't fully explored or taken advantage of, why bother with another?
B)In order to do anything productive, you'd have to establish infrastructure in the neighbouring galaxy, which if it is a true galaxy and not a satellite, then you've got 2.2 million lys (assuming SW local group formation is similar to our own) to commute across to set up said infrastructure and bring anything back. Even at Hyperdrive speeds, that's still nearly 20 times longer than a trip across the diameter of the SW galaxy (assuming diameter of 150k ly. If it's 250k, than it's a bit under 10 times.)

It's a matter of how much they need more resources. In other words, not at all. When the finally exhaust all the resources in the SW galaxy, an insanely unlikely proposition (I'd wager that stars would start dying long before you'd exhaust a galaxy's worth of mineral wealth)

At first I wanted to post a me-too on the 'hyperspace barrier' is stupid thing, but then I sort of remembered something. Now this is far from my area of wider reading, but isn't there an existance of 'Dark Matter' and 'Dark Energy' - i.e. something scientists made up to explain the 'missing parts' of the Universe to make their equations balance - ?

And if so, would it be fair to assume that this 'Dark Matter/Energy' would be most prelevant in between galaxies (rather than inside a galaxy since it would be easier for us to detect), and maybe that this is a cause for the lack of inter-galactic trips?

Just thinking out loud here.

Crown wrote: And if so, would it be fair to assume that this 'Dark Matter/Energy' would be most prelevant in between galaxies (rather than inside a galaxy since it would be easier for us to detect), and maybe that this is a cause for the lack of inter-galactic trips?

Just thinking out loud here.

Dark matter on large scales forms a filamentary structure, with galaxy superclusters and clusters forming along the filaments. Inside the filaments, dark matter is expected to be locally concentrated towards the centres of galaxies, not towards their edges. It needs to be centrally concentrated to account for the rotation curves of spirals being flat, and a variety of other observations. Galaxies form in regions of dark matter overdensity, because the dark matter (being collisionless) collapses first (forming filaments and lumps in these filaments), and then drags baryonic matter in after it, which then forms stars.

Dark energy, as presently formulated, does not concentrate at all - it has a constant density throughout space. If it does concentrate, it's very unlikely to do so on such small distances as those between members of a galaxy group or cluster. I expect that concentration around the "edge" of a galaxy would probably make it rather unstable.

Glimmervoid wrote:Ok hear as some things we know an Acclamator troop transport can travel 250 000 light years with out needing to refuel(EDIT and since this is also a war ship they probley could do better with a new desinge).

The distance from the milkeyway and its nearest galaxy is 179 000 light years. If we assume that the starwars galaxy is about the same as ours this means a military troop transport could make inter galactic trip. Also if we assume the modest figure of 10 million times c for its speed it can do it in just over 6 ½ days.

So my question is why have we never heard of inter galactic travel happening in any of the films or EU novels(not counting the Vong) and with inter galactic travel possible why were the Vong suck a surprise.

Ps sorry if there has been inter galactic travle and I have missed it.

*mutters* radiation *mumble* barrier <inuintelligeble> aliens *something* bermuda triangle *static* oil slicks *distortion* sargasso sea *buuurp* Scylla and Charybdis *hey what's that over there!* speed bumps *help you I can yes, mmmm* bunnies

You'd think it would be easy, but it's as if some powerful force were preventing it from happening, perhaps a force wearing a large flannel shirt...

Crown wrote:At first I wanted to post a me-too on the 'hyperspace barrier' is stupid thing, but then I sort of remembered something. Now this is far from my area of wider reading, but isn't there an existance of 'Dark Matter' and 'Dark Energy' - i.e. something scientists made up to explain the 'missing parts' of the Universe to make their equations balance - ?

And if so, would it be fair to assume that this 'Dark Matter/Energy' would be most prelevant in between galaxies (rather than inside a galaxy since it would be easier for us to detect), and maybe that this is a cause for the lack of inter-galactic trips?

Just thinking out loud here.

I am most definitely not an expert on dark matter/energy, but I know in one of the ICS books it mentions that while in hyperspace, shields help deflect dark matter.

Techno_Union wrote: I am most definitely not an expert on dark matter/energy, but I know in one of the ICS books it mentions that while in hyperspace, shields help deflect dark matter.

That's odd; dark matter is expected to be collisionless.

ClaysGhost wrote:

Techno_Union wrote: I am most definitely not an expert on dark matter/energy, but I know in one of the ICS books it mentions that while in hyperspace, shields help deflect dark matter.

That's odd; dark matter is expected to be collisionless.

My mistake, the ROTS:ICS said "dark particles."

The reason that the unknown regions are dangerous (according to NJO) is that a dark matter galaxy is crashing in to it. Dark matter in NJO is defined as a particle that only interacts with the normal universe through gravity. This is why hyperspace travel is hard but not real space travel in the unknown regions.