How long was Luke on Dagobah

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2005-06-13 01:55pm

Well, I googled it, and got no definitive answer. I thought he was on Dagobah for a couple of months, but I've seen answers from A couple days, a couple weeks all the way up to a year. What say you guys?

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2005-06-13 02:00pm

Uncertain. But it appears that he was there as long as Han and Leia's Trip from Hoth to Bespin. Since that time is uncertain...it is hard to say definitively

felineki · Post by **felineki** » 2005-06-13 02:06pm

His stay during ESB? I don't think it could have been very long... IIRC, Han, Leia and the gang headed for Bespin as soon as they had evaded the Imperial pursuit, which in turn was just as they were leaving Hoth. I'm not sure how long they were on Bespin, but I would assume that it wasn't very long, seeing as Vader and Fett were there waiting for them. And of course, Luke leaves Dagobah and arrives shortly afterward in an attempt to save them. I'd think it couldn't have been more than a few days, a week or so at the most.

This is just from my recollection of the movie, however. I'm not familiar with any books or other sources of info... feel free to yell at me if I screwed up too badly.

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2005-06-13 02:20pm

According to the Star Wars Technical Commentaries:

Typical distances between neighbouring star systems are a light year or several light years. Therefore even if Anoat and Bespin are particularly close, the Millennium Falcon must have spent at many months (probably just over a year) engaged in sublight travel, according to standard galactic time (measured on Coruscant). The ship's occupants probably did not experience so much shipboard time, since a sufficient relativistic acceleration while in transit will give rise to natural time dilation, even if starships don't come equipped with temporal compression devices akin to artificial gravity technologies. This potentially long duration has the advantage of allowing Luke Skywalker plenty of meantime for training with Yoda on Dagobah, making his evidently significant increase in Jedi proficiency seem much more realistic.

felineki · Post by **felineki** » 2005-06-13 02:52pm

Utsanomiko wrote:According to the Star Wars Technical Commentaries:

Typical distances between neighbouring star systems are a light year or several light years. Therefore even if Anoat and Bespin are particularly close, the Millennium Falcon must have spent at many months (probably just over a year) engaged in sublight travel, according to standard galactic time (measured on Coruscant). The ship's occupants probably did not experience so much shipboard time, since a sufficient relativistic acceleration while in transit will give rise to natural time dilation, even if starships don't come equipped with temporal compression devices akin to artificial gravity technologies. This potentially long duration has the advantage of allowing Luke Skywalker plenty of meantime for training with Yoda on Dagobah, making his evidently significant increase in Jedi proficiency seem much more realistic.

Ah, interesting. I had no clue how far away Bespin was, and I'm not really up on my SW tech knowledge, so I wasn't sure at what kind of rate the Falcon would be travelling... this explains a lot.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2005-06-13 02:58pm

Utsanomiko wrote:According to the Star Wars Technical Commentaries:

Typical distances between neighbouring star systems are a light year or several light years. Therefore even if Anoat and Bespin are particularly close, the Millennium Falcon must have spent at many months (probably just over a year) engaged in sublight travel, according to standard galactic time (measured on Coruscant). The ship's occupants probably did not experience so much shipboard time, since a sufficient relativistic acceleration while in transit will give rise to natural time dilation, even if starships don't come equipped with temporal compression devices akin to artificial gravity technologies. This potentially long duration has the advantage of allowing Luke Skywalker plenty of meantime for training with Yoda on Dagobah, making his evidently significant increase in Jedi proficiency seem much more realistic.

How does that jibe with backup hyperdrives that the Falcon has? I always assumed that the ship took at most 1-2 months to get to Bespin. I'm more inclined to think a few weeks.

Why would Vader wait for more than that when he could just dispatch some ships to intercept the limping Millenium Falcon? Why go through the elaborate trap and deception at Bespin?

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2005-06-13 03:13pm

'Backup Hyperdrives' are a roleplay game device. If the Falcon had them in the films, novels, or tech manuals they would have mentioned them.

The line that the Falcon 'could be on the other side of the galaxy by now' indicates that they weren't sure if it was capable of lightspeed or not (They would have said 'in another system by now' if they expected them to have a damaged main drive but escaped by turning on a backup).

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2005-06-13 03:20pm

You have Fett trailing them, he sends a signal, an Imperial Stardestroyer jumps in and reels the crippled Falcon in. I don't see what the point of the trap on Bespin was if the Falcon was simply tooling around at sublight. If the Falcon was making hops at lightspeed using the backup it makes more sense for Vader to simply wait for them on Bespin.

Also you have this line of dialogue:

"Where are we?"

"The Anoat System."

"There's not much there."

"Wait a minute...Lando."

"Lando system?"

"Not a system he's a man -SNIP- Bespin, it's pretty far but we can make it"

This would seem to indicate that they had some form of hyperdrive backup otherwise why even consider another starsystem when you're already in one. At sublight that would take years. Plus you have the issues of food and the like lasting the trip.

And lastly WEG materials have been used as a source for many writers especially in the early EU why discount the hyperdrive backup systems just because they were WEG material?

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-06-13 05:46pm

This would seem to indicate that they had some form of hyperdrive backup otherwise why even consider another starsystem when you're already in one. At sublight that would take years. Plus you have the issues of food and the like lasting the trip.

As I recall, one of the WEG books (I believe) places the Falcon's total consumables capacity at 2 months, thus placing an absolute uper limit on their trip time (plus perhaps a week or so if their is sufficent rationing of supplies and air.) This trip time is perfectly acceptable, assuming the MF either did have a limited backup hyperdrive, or the ISD it hitched onto jumped around a bit before jumping away with the fleet.

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2005-06-13 05:52pm

But that's firstly assuming the majority of the trip was spent substantially below or above luminal speeds, where time dialation would be negligible. The point Saxton raises is that if the Falcon were travelling at near-lightspeed, the ship and crew would only experience a few days time passage, while many months pass in real time.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-06-13 06:06pm

Utsanomiko wrote:But that's firstly assuming the majority of the trip was spent substantially below or above luminal speeds, where time dialation would be negligible. The point Saxton raises is that if the Falcon were travelling at near-lightspeed, the ship and crew would only experience a few days time passage, while many months pass in real time.

This is a valid point, but it does not explain why the Imperials didnt capture the MF earlier (actually, mine might not either.) Obviously, Boba Fett knew where the Falcon was, and I doubt he would just sit in space, trailing Han as he inched through space for more than a year. Even if he wasnt sure of where the MF was headed, he could have easily extrapolated the their course and left to report to Vader. Its not like they were going anywhere fast.

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2005-06-13 06:13pm

Pure Sabacc wrote:
Utsanomiko wrote:But that's firstly assuming the majority of the trip was spent substantially below or above luminal speeds, where time dialation would be negligible. The point Saxton raises is that if the Falcon were travelling at near-lightspeed, the ship and crew would only experience a few days time passage, while many months pass in real time.
This is a valid point, but it does not explain why the Imperials didnt capture the MF earlier (actually, mine might not either.) Obviously, Boba Fett knew where the Falcon was, and I doubt he would just sit in space, trailing Han as he inched through space for more than a year. Even if he wasnt sure of where the MF was headed, he could have easily extrapolated the their course and left to report to Vader. Its not like they were going anywhere fast.

That's probably what did happen. Fett figured out which systme and planet the Falcon was going to land on, and alerted Vader, who then jumped to Bespin and awaited the ship's arrival. He could have concluded it was better to capture them when their ship had landed and presumed safe than to simply catch up to a vessel going near-c and try to swat it out of the sky again.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-06-13 06:18pm

That's probably what did happen. Fett figured out which systme and planet the Falcon was going to land on, and alerted Vader, who then jumped to Bespin and awaited the ship's arrival. He could have concluded it was better to capture them when their ship had landed and presumed safe than to simply catch up to a vessel going near-c and try to swat it out of the sky again.

Patientence never really struck me as one of Vader's strong points.

Nevertheless, I suppose its as good as a hypothesis as any I've heard.

Deathstalker · Post by **Deathstalker** » 2005-06-13 08:26pm

Boba Fett is the type not to take any chances. He may have trailed the Falcon, not informing Vader, until Fett was sure the Falcon was going to Bespin. The Han could have fixed the drives enroute and jumped some where else. I doubt Fett wanted to deliver bad news to Vader. "You told me they would be here bounty hunter!" As the Falcon closed in on Bespin and Cloud City, Fett assumed that if they Han had fixed things the Falcon would have jumped, Fett calls Vader and the trap is set.

That being said, Han isn't the type to take chances either. I could believe he has a backup drive, especially in light of the Falcon's finicky nature. Some one else suggested that the backup allowed the Falcon to make short hops, having to cool down periodically. I imagine Han would nurse the drive just enough to make it to Bespin. Since Han was taking the shortest route and made a mistake not checking his six, Fett was able to follow easily.

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2005-06-13 10:13pm

I'll admit it is certainly plausible, though not strongly founded, that the Falcon could have spent some of the time, and consequently much of the distance in microjumps with some sort of backup. Although not one easily activatable or of the power and reliability comparable to simply a slow normal hyperdrive, which is what West End Games protrayed their backups. Even such backups, which are usually rated at ten to fifteen times slower, should have gotten the Falcon to its destination of one of the next systems over within a few hours at most, if not mere minutes. Not exactly the best window for Fett to confirm their destination, contact the Imperial fleet, and allow them to arrive undetectably ahead.

Anyhow, such a start-and-stop journey would put the upper limit of time at two months, which then makes you wonder how Luke was able to train so fast or why such arduous weeks of microjumps would be easier or more convenient for the crew than accellerating to near-lightspeed for a few relative days.

Srynerson · Post by **Srynerson** » 2005-06-13 10:38pm

Utsanomiko wrote:why such arduous weeks of microjumps would be easier or more convenient for the crew than accellerating to near-lightspeed for a few relative days.

Since their goal was to eventually get back to the Rebel fleet (i.e., a third party), the passage of objective time might have been of more concern to them than the passage of subjective time.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2005-06-14 12:14am

Utsanomiko wrote:That's probably what did happen. Fett figured out which systme and planet the Falcon was going to land on, and alerted Vader, who then jumped to Bespin and awaited the ship's arrival. He could have concluded it was better to capture them when their ship had landed and presumed safe than to simply catch up to a vessel going near-c and try to swat it out of the sky again.

I'm not sure that jives up, since Lando claimed that Vader had gotten there shortly before Han and Gang did.

Personally, I think that the Hoth and Anoat are a distant binary system, which would make the MF's trip days or weeks rather than years and work with Vader just beating the MF there.

Sam Or I · Post by **Sam Or I** » 2005-06-14 12:21am

Well we also have to speculate on how much time they hid in the astroid field, and how much time they sat on the back of the stardestroyer. Like someone pointed out, 2 month max due to limited food.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2005-06-14 12:27am

Also as to Luke's training needing time, its fairly obvious that Luke has been given very bare basic training - compare him to padawan Kenobi in TPM and we see that padawan Kenobi just on saber figthing alone would have probably defeated Luke. Luke was completely unaware of a very basic Sith attack (the lightning) did not know how to deal with the Dark side temptations (Luke's training re the Darkside seems to have comprised of "The Darkside is bad mmmkay?") Did not have Force speed, force pushes, precog was limited in terms of far seeing.

He was a shake and bake Jedi, he didn't have time to have proper training and even then he had advanced so quickly that Yoda was amazed he could almost lift the ship out of the bog.

Post by **Vympel** » 2005-06-14 12:36am

Stravo wrote: Why would Vader wait for more than that when he could just dispatch some ships to intercept the limping Millenium Falcon? Why go through the elaborate trap and deception at Bespin?

I think the best explanation is that Boba Fett didn't contact Vader until he knew where the Falcon was going. As Lando said, "they arrived right before you did."

Also as to Luke's training needing time, its fairly obvious that Luke has been given very bare basic training - compare him to padawan Kenobi in TPM and we see that padawan Kenobi just on saber figthing alone would have probably defeated Luke.

I don't know about that actually. Luke seemed fast enough to me, and Obi-Wan in TPM was mostly flashy nonsense bereft of purpose- which was why Darth Maul could contemptuously kick and punch him a few times.

Luke was completely unaware of a very basic Sith attack (the lightning) did not know how to deal with the Dark side temptations (Luke's training re the Darkside seems to have comprised of "The Darkside is bad mmmkay?") Did not have Force speed, force pushes, precog was limited in terms of far seeing.

Well he did see Han and Leia etc in pain. He did have force speed though. Watch his force jump out of the pit. It's a blur.

SVPD · Post by **SVPD** » 2005-06-14 02:11am

If the Falcon had backup hyperdrives, why would they not use them to escape the ISD right away when they discovered the damage to the main, rather than screw around with the whole asteroid belt and attaching to the ISD scheme.

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2005-06-14 03:01am

Good point; even if it was an unwiedly system that took a long time to warm up/connect to the system, they should have been prepping it while in the asteroid cave while fixing the main hyperdrive. Instead they try activating the main again and go 'aww snaps' when it fails once again.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2005-06-14 05:04am

What I want to know is how Luke trained with his lightsaber. He goes from Vader handing him his ass on a silver platter to defeating Vader in single combat from ESB to ROTJ.

SVPD · Post by **SVPD** » 2005-06-14 08:17am

HemlockGrey wrote:What I want to know is how Luke trained with his lightsaber. He goes from Vader handing him his ass on a silver platter to defeating Vader in single combat from ESB to ROTJ.

I'd think that loosing to Vader the first time taught him a lot of very valuable and painful lessons about lightsaber combat, especially against Vader.

Post by **Vympel** » 2005-06-14 08:20am

I think he was just that much stronger in the force. It was his rage that allowed him to defeat Vader though- his hate made him powerful.