The Outbound Flight

[Punarbhava]

Has anyone read this, or Survivor's Quest? How do you think it meshes with the original Thrawn Trilogy?

One problem I have is this apparent brainbug in the newer EU novels I've read where the Chiss are an incredible super-smart race-- for example, fitting gravity well generators completely inside the hull of a cruiser in the ore-Clone Wars era when the Empire post-Thrawn couldn't do so in their Interdictors.

And do you think Spoiler

the vague ominous extra-galactic threat is the YV or the Killiks or something else?

[Samuel]

Can someone explain the idea behind outbound flight?

For our galaxy, the distance to the next real one is only 30 times its width- why is getting between the so hard for Star Wars? And if it is really hard, why would anyone go?

[Punarbhava]

Spoiler

People thought there was a barrier at the edge of the galaxy preventing hyperspace travel until someone accidentally went past it. Joruus C'Baoth wanted to establish a jedi order of his own 'cause he's crazy, so he 'convinced' Palpatine (who of course wanted to get rid of all the Jedi anyway) to let him take a bunch of Jedi and 50k people in 6 Dreadnaughts all linked together by a big tube through the Unknown Regions and then to the next galaxy.

But the Chiss, with Thrawn as a commander in their military fleet, got all involved and I can't remember what happened next.

[The Romulan Republic]

Spoiler

People thought there was a barrier at the edge of the galaxy preventing hyperspace travel until someone accidentally went past it. Joruus C'Baoth wanted to establish a jedi order of his own 'cause he's crazy, so he 'convinced' Palpatine (who of course wanted to get rid of all the Jedi anyway) to let him take a bunch of Jedi and 50k people in 6 Dreadnaughts all linked together by a big tube through the Unknown Regions and then to the next galaxy.

But the Chiss, with Thrawn as a commander in their military fleet, got all involved and I can't remember what happened next.

Spoiler

Thrawn kicked their asses.

[Samuel]

Wasn't that retonned away? Not to mention the fact the galaxy is 3-D. You could simply hop over the barrier.

[Junghalli]

Not to mention the fact the galaxy is 3-D. You could simply hop over the barrier.

The barrier could be 3D as well.

Is it possible that for some reason hyperdrive just doesn't work as well in intergalactic space?

Out-universe I write it up to Zahn not really realizing or caring about the implications of hyperdrive speed for intergalactic exploration, just like he doesn't seem to have realized or cared about how the industrial capacity represented by the Death Star would make the idea of a fleet of 200 600 meter long ships being a major force on the galactic scale laughable on its face. The man's a pretty decent writer but he's ridiculously minimalist.

[The Romulan Republic]

Not to mention the fact the galaxy is 3-D. You could simply hop over the barrier.

The barrier could be 3D as well.

Is it possible that for some reason hyperdrive just doesn't work as well in intergalactic space?

Out-universe I write it up to Zahn not really realizing or caring about the implications of hyperdrive speed for intergalactic exploration, just like he doesn't seem to have realized or cared about how the industrial capacity represented by the Death Star would make the idea of a fleet of 200 600 meter long ships being a major force on the galactic scale laughable on its face. The man's a pretty decent writer but he's ridiculously minimalist.

Zahn has his flaws as a writer: the idiotic, even racist art thing with Thrawn, an arguable overreliance on somewhat gimmicky plot devices like clones of characters and Force-blocking animals, and perhaps some pacing issues to give some examples. However, he's hardly the worst minimalist. He is after all the source for the 25,000 Star Destroyers figure, though that came later in his career. Maybe his understanding of the universe has improved over time.

[Guardsman Bass]

Don't they have settlements in the satellite galaxies, like the Rishi Maze? That would seem to indicate that hyperdrive does work in inter-galactic space.

Is there something unusual about the location of the SW galaxy, like it being exceptionally far away from neighboring galaxies? Or it could just be that there have been groups of people taking hyperdrive out into inter-galactic space, but they just don't generally come back, for various reasons (i.e., they're one-way settlers).

[Vympel]

Was it Joruus (the clone) or Jorus?

[Thanas]

Or the OP could have simply done a search and found the several threads that were talking about Outbound flight.

[Vympel]

There's nothing wrong with raising some issues for discussion. There's no need to resurrect old threads, IMO.

[Crayz9000]

Was it Joruus (the clone) or Jorus?

The Outbound Flight had Jorus on board. Apparently someone took a genetic sample from him before he left on the mission, however, and cloned him. That clone ended up killing the Emperor's dark Jedi guardian of Mt. Tantiss and that's how he ran into Thrawn.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Something that occurred to me about the supposed hyperspace barrier- is it possible that the thing did actually exist, and was not a natural feature at all, but an artificial manipulation of space?

The idea's so inherently nuts I hardly know how to put it into words, major technobabble may have to be deployed- but consider the potential usefulness of a ripple in space (or in subspace?) as a strategic defence line.

If it is some kind of artificial deepening of the galaxy's natural collective gravity well, then it might be possible to arrange for it to have interdictor-like properties hundreds of light years deep; it would mean that any intergalactic invasion would be faced with a period of generation ship like travel through open space, in plain sight, giving the defenders all the time they could possibly need to react.

Enormous scale of effort required, though, and arguably rendered irrelevant by improvements in hyperdrive technology over the must have been many thousands of years since it was set up- or possibly eroded away by the normal curvature of space reasserting itself.

I don't think it could have been a Republic project from the very early days- Palpatine's Empire might have been capable of it, but the Republic never had the extent and the will to do it.

The Rakata were overthrown by a tiny fragment of what later went on to be the republic, so I doubt they had the industrial might for it; the Gree have wierd technology and just possibly could have done something of the sort- perhaps they bankrupted themselves building it, and that's why they're reduced to a curiosity in the modern era?

I know, I'm building a castle in the air here. It's just a hypothesis.

[Darth Ruinus]

Don't they have settlements in the satellite galaxies, like the Rishi Maze? That would seem to indicate that hyperdrive does work in inter-galactic space.

That's what I always thought too, especially after I saw Ep. II and the map of the GR is brought up in the Jedi Archives, showing the main galaxy, and 2 other smaller ones. Not knowing much about the EU, I always took this to mean the GR was actually a republic of 3 galaxies. That would be cool, but I doubt it's right.

[Teleros]

By happy coincidence I watched AotC last night, and remember Dex mentioning how Kamino was ~12 parsecs outside the Rishi Maze. Given what a tiny distance that is in astronomical terms...

1. The Rishi Maze isn't that satellite galaxy, but was close to it on the 2D picture of the galaxy (ie, the Rishi Maze is inside the main galaxy).
2. When he mentioned "parsecs" he meant "kiloparsecs" or something similar.
3. The Rishi Maze is that satellite galaxy, and you'd expect it to be colonised if you can have Kamino just 12pc beyond it.

Dex also mentions how it's beyond the Outer Rim. If the Outer Rim of the Republic then Kamino could still be inside the galaxy. If the Outer Rim of the galaxy then possibly the Outer Rim can be said to envelop the galaxy entirely (ie not just the edge). There might still be enough stars out there or Obi Wan's holographic map he shows Yoda & the padawans, especially if it's so close to a satellite galaxy.

[Elheru Aran]

And do you think Spoiler

the vague ominous extra-galactic threat is the YV or the Killiks or something else?

Spoiler

I believe it's clearly indicated that they're the Yuuzhan Vong.

[Skgoa]

2. When he mentioned "parsecs" he meant "kiloparsecs" or something similar.

why? do you give directions in the form of "150 miles after the bus stop" or "150 feet after the bus stop"? if Kamino were 12000 parsecs away from the given point of reference, would he not have chosen one that is more relevant to its location?

[Serafina]

Well, snapping off a "kilo" in a form of measurment is a common mistake - especially if you talk about distances/measurments you do not understand.
Just look at how "calorie" is used.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Can someone explain the idea behind outbound flight?

For our galaxy, the distance to the next real one is only 30 times its width- why is getting between the so hard for Star Wars? And if it is really hard, why would anyone go?

This argument is less salient with space. How come it is so hard to go 100 miles up but not across the Earth?

[Junghalli]

This argument is less salient with space. How come it is so hard to go 100 miles up but not across the Earth?

Unless hyperspace is slower in intergalactic space, I'm afraid I don't see the connection. There is, as far as I can think of, no real qualitative difference between travelling between stars and travelling between galaxies except that one is a longer journey than the other.

[Batman]

If anything intergalactic travel should be FASTER overall than intragalactic because there's way fewer obstacles you have to account for.
And I, too, don't think I understand what IP is getting at. The reason it's easier to go cross-country 100 miles that doing so straight up is (among other things) mostly gravity. Why would that extend to space travel?

[Illuminatus Primus]

Potential energy is the difference. Now I can't think of how hyperspace travel requires changes in potential energy but the maximum range known for a spacecraft is 250,000 light-years. It could be the SW galaxy is uniquely isolated and/or there are very difficult to surmount economic and fuel efficiency barriers to traveling over a million light-years in a single push. Don't forget, its not like there are no galaxies they have contact with. The primary has rather large satellites, which could orbit quite far away.

[Bilbo]

If anything intergalactic travel should be FASTER overall than intragalactic because there's way fewer obstacles you have to account for.
And I, too, don't think I understand what IP is getting at. The reason it's easier to go cross-country 100 miles that doing so straight up is (among other things) mostly gravity. Why would that extend to space travel?

While the space between galaxies is sparce it is not completely empty. Maybe the difficultly is in not having accurate nav charts which means a trip of 1 million LY would require so many charting stops thats its not a worthwhile trip.

[The Original Nex]

I agree with IP's point on fuel efficiency. The Acclamator is said to be a "true intergalactic warship" (or something along those lines) and has a hyperdrive range of "merely" 120,000 lys. I would wager that is a greater range than most civilian starships have without refueling.

That range limitation would make it at least more difficult and costly to attempt extra-galactic travel with distinct galaxies outside their local cluster.

[Darth Ruinus]

could be the SW galaxy is uniquely isolated and/or there are very difficult to surmount economic and fuel efficiency barriers to traveling over a million light-years in a single push.

Well, its not like they have to reach the dwarf galaxies on one fuel tank. They could easily have a chain of refueling stations loaded up with hypermatter between the main galaxy and the other two. Although maintaining the refueling stations is probably what would be the problem then.