Lack of Relativity in SW & Consequences

[Strider]

This has been dogging me for a bit now, and I'd like to hear if there is some consensus opinion for the purpose of quantification:

SW ships have Hyperdrives which seem to work independently of the real space velocity of the ship in question, and allow ships to move much faster than light. In addition, SW ships have powerful non-FTL drives and could with little difficulty approach the speed of light in real space. In spite of this, no one in the history of all canon has used a Hyperdrive to create a Closed Timelike Curve and move backwards in time, nor has the possibility even been discussed. The only viable conclusion is that Special Relativity, if it exists at all in the SW Universe, is somehow broken or different. This means (at least) one of the following postulates must be incorrect in the SWverse:

1) The Laws of Physics are the same in all inertial reference frames.
2) Light moves at a constant speed c in all inertial reference frames.

If 2) is invalid and 1) is valid, then Newtonian Physics should work perfectly, always, and there is no special need for Hyperdrive (no cosmic speed limit), however it may be more energy or time efficient to use it instead of just realspace drives for distance travel. Electrodynamics is completely destroyed and light has to work in a much different way, but since SW already has shields and other strange unexplained E&M like effects, this is not so unbelievable. One might imagine 'photons' being light particles that are always emitted or reflected from an object with a relative velocity of c which have some discrete amount of energy which determines their cross-section and color.

Is there anything in SWverse canon that directly references a speed of light realspace speed limit? Is E=mc^2 (this falls out of special relativity) ever explicitly referenced or shown to be true? Are any relativistic effects other than the GR mass distortion of Hyperspace mentioned? If this is the only example of relativity, do we have any reason to believe it's actually the same GR? (I always thought that GR in Hyperspace seemed to be acting on larger size scales than GR normally acts for given masses, and that the possibility of impact or catastrophe on even a completely unplanned Hyperspace jump SHOULD be tiny).

One immediate consequence if this becomes believable is that any upper bounds on energies based on say, the mass of a photon torpedo, are completely invalid since matter and energy are two discrete creatures.

[Ford Prefect]

While I can appreciate where you're coming from here, Star Wars is a soft science fiction universe. The simple fact of the matter is that hyperdrive is not so much a technology grounded in science but rather a literary device for moving characters from one planet to another. Because it has observed capabilities we can make inferences on what it is supposed to be capable of, but attempting to examine it much more closely than that is doomed to failure.

[The Vortex Empire]

Isn't this explained away by some sort of temporal damper? I remember hearing that some time ago.

[Ender]

Yes there are references to C being the limit, we see evidence of relativistic effects in the EU and in the films, and there was at least one reference to the results of possible continuity violation, stating that the Force doesn't allow it. Relativity still holds in SW.

[Darth Raptor]

Isn't this explained away by some sort of temporal damper? I remember hearing that some time ago.

Yes, there are even instances of of such doohickeys failing and ships coming out of hyperspace decades after having been reported as lost.

"Did we win the Clone Wars?"

"Well, yes and no."

[Strider]

Yes there are references to C being the limit, we see evidence of relativistic effects in the EU and in the films, and there was at least one reference to the results of possible continuity violation, stating that the Force doesn't allow it. Relativity still holds in SW.

Do you happen to know where the bit is about the Force not allowing it and/or the author? This seems strange because I always thought of the Force as something which had to be harnessed in some manner by some living creature (even unconsciously) whenever it breaks Physics. The Force doing this would mean it isn't discriminating between living/nonliving and also activating automatically.

[Darth Raptor]

It's possible that quantum mechanics maintain consistency protection in our own universe, so even if time travel were possible (and FTL is time travel if relativity is true), the past is deterministic.

[Illuminatus Primus]

There clearly must be a preferred frame of reference in SW. Generally we assume the universe is identical to ours. We use relativity except where it cannot apply (i.e., hyperjumps do not cause closed timelike loops in any reference frame).

[Saxtonite]

Yes, there are even instances of of such doohickeys failing and ships coming out of hyperspace decades after having been reported as lost.

"Did we win the Clone Wars?"

"Well, yes and no."

can you explain and/or provide sources/details to what examples you are referring to? I am interested.

In addition, SW ships have powerful non-FTL drives and could with little difficulty approach the speed of light in real space.

IIRC there have been no examples I know if where the sublight went to those speeds. Can you explain?

[Darth Yoshi]

In NJO, fighters routinely engage at a significant portion of c. Unfortunately, NJO was forgettable enough that I don't remember which book that was in. Black Fleet Crisis also has a TIE Interceptor approach c by maxing out the engines for an interstellar run. Also, assuming that the Falcon didn't have a back-up hyperdrive in ESB, it would have required relativistic velocities to get from Anoat(?) to Bespin in any reasonable time frame.

[Ender]

Yes there are references to C being the limit, we see evidence of relativistic effects in the EU and in the films, and there was at least one reference to the results of possible continuity violation, stating that the Force doesn't allow it. Relativity still holds in SW.

Do you happen to know where the bit is about the Force not allowing it and/or the author? This seems strange because I always thought of the Force as something which had to be harnessed in some manner by some living creature (even unconsciously) whenever it breaks Physics. The Force doing this would mean it isn't discriminating between living/nonliving and also activating automatically.

Troy Denning in his 2nd book of the Legacy series. Jacen does some time walking and the question is why they can't go back and change the past. Response is that the Force won't let them.

Really shouldn't be surprising if you think about it. The Force already allows for causality violation in the form of precog. That it can dictate what can and what can't travel through time is just an extrapolation from that.

[Strider]

There clearly must be a preferred frame of reference in SW. Generally we assume the universe is identical to ours. We use relativity except where it cannot apply (i.e., hyperjumps do not cause closed timelike loops in any reference frame).

Do you mean that all Hyperspace jumps immediately and automatically return a ship to some set "Hyperdrive Reference Frame" (HRF)? Is this perhaps the way these mysterious temporal dampers work? A set HRF for Hyperjumps is the only way they can FAIL to cause CTCs.

One possibility that makes a vague sort of sense is that at some point, there was the first Hyperspace jump ever. This jump seeded a Hyperdrive instability into the entire universe (not just its light cone, because if two such cones ever met there would be MAJOR issues) which makes it impossible to enter Hyperspace at anything other than the "original" Hyperspace velocity. There are two problems with this theory:

1) A ship does not have a single unique velocity because all the particles in it have their own velocities which are slightly different. It's possible that this may be put down by appeals to the time-energy uncertainty principle, and in cases when the velocities within a ship are too divergent for this to work, the Hyperjump fails.

2) It is sometimes impossible to determine an original Hyperspace velocity. If there is any Hyperjump which is not in the "original" Hyperjump's light cone, it is impossible to determine which jump happened first because before the first Hyperjump occurs there is no preferred HRF to work in. The only solution is that the first Hyperjump was the Big Bang itself, uniquely creating a HRF which can not be contradicted because there is nothing outside its light cone. Perhaps something about the HRF lets it store inertia for any object in the universe in order to facilitate Hyperjumps, and temporal dampers exploit this. If the inertia/energy is merely stored or borrowed, it would explain why ships don't exit Hyperspace moving at some arbitrary velocity to match the HRF. This theory would cast a rather dark light on anything saying a temporal damper can "fail" though, since that should just mean the jump fails.

So I guess this can work with SR, but only if this mysterious HRF happily stores inertia and energy for any temporal damper in good repair and if the uncertainty principle is kind enough to cover ass for slight divergent velocities. Perhaps a sharp gravity potential somehow blocks this free and easy exchange with the HRF, preventing Hyperjumps? This would explain why Hyperjumps are so finicky about being plotted correctly (if you go through even one teensy bit of too-curved space, the HRF inertia bank closes your account and you pop out).

[Darth Hoth]

Yes, there are even instances of of such doohickeys failing and ships coming out of hyperspace decades after having been reported as lost.

"Did we win the Clone Wars?"

"Well, yes and no."

can you explain and/or provide sources/details to what examples you are referring to? I am interested.

I know not whether this is the example Raptor is referring to (the details do not appear to match), but here is an example from Wookiee, with a link to the original source.

[nightmare]

Might just as well add to the list...

[Strider]

Yes there are references to C being the limit, we see evidence of relativistic effects in the EU and in the films, and there was at least one reference to the results of possible continuity violation, stating that the Force doesn't allow it. Relativity still holds in SW.

Do you happen to know where the bit is about the Force not allowing it and/or the author? This seems strange because I always thought of the Force as something which had to be harnessed in some manner by some living creature (even unconsciously) whenever it breaks Physics. The Force doing this would mean it isn't discriminating between living/nonliving and also activating automatically.

Troy Denning in his 2nd book of the Legacy series. Jacen does some time walking and the question is why they can't go back and change the past. Response is that the Force won't let them.

Really shouldn't be surprising if you think about it. The Force already allows for causality violation in the form of precog. That it can dictate what can and what can't travel through time is just an extrapolation from that.

If this is the case, it is theoretically possible to get many ysalamiri (Thrawn's force-neutralizers) together and make a small bubble where you can create CTCs. If you could then build many hyperdrives which could make very small, very accurate jumps and attach them to very powerful, precise realspace engines, you could build a CTC-computer. If such a computer could perform a flop inside a Closed Timelike Curve, it can then perform an infinite number of flops in zero time. Cool Superweapon.

I think the limiting factor would probably be the hyperbola of needing lots and lots of ysalamiri or needing exceedingly advanced Hyperdrives. I'm not sure how many ysalamiri it would take with current Hyperdrive technology, but at the very least it would probably require a cloning program.

This sort of reasoning is why I'd favor the Hyperspace Reference Frame instability over the Force as the agent protecting against time travel.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The ysalamiri don't actually create a zone without the Force, just where it cannot be used or have direct influence.

[Darth Ruinus]

While this is mentioned in that Bosbit article, relativistic shields might explain some of this stuff.