I was skimming through the Last Jedi spoiler discussion thread and I stumbled across your speculation regarding a correlation between Holdo’s hyperspace kamikaze and the hyperspace tracking device in the Supremecy. I’ll post those thoughts here for context.
The way I understand hyperspace working is that it’s a dimension weakly coupled to normal space, so that ships traveling through hyperspace would still need to ‘avoid’ masses but a crash would primarily affect the object in hyperspace. Under this theory, any ship going to Hyperspace would damage that ship far more than the target.
But what if the hyperspace tracking technology used by the Supremacy means that the ship is always partially in Hyperspace? After all, some part of the ship would need to interact with this dimension at all times for it to work. Under this theory, the First Order is undone by its own technology and hubris rather than an overpowered exploit of the ill-defined rules of the universe.
The idea is that the Supremacy’s hyperspace tracking device acts as a static hyperdrive itself when active. It’s static in that the Supremacy enters hyperspace with this device but doesn’t move, allowing it to use its sensors to find other ships in hyperspace.
I’m thinking of it like a periscope on a submarine - part of the sub must leave the water for it to work. To continue the analogy - if a speedboat were to hit the periscope, it would damage the sub, whereas if there were no periscope the boat would pass overhead with little disturbance.
I really love this hypothesis. While I don’t really have a problem with the questions it has raised with the fan base myself, I think this explanation could really alleviate those questions nicely. It’d be interesting if this could be the implied explanation in a fan edit, but I do think it still requires some assumptions though. Was Holdo aware of the hyperspace tracker on the Supremecy by that point, and if she was, how did she know how it works and that ramming it in hyperspace would actually have that effect?
While you could handwave it and say she learned about it off screen, it’d be nice if it was at least implied in the film through editing that she knew. You could also imply some connection to Holdo’s hyperspace jump and the tracking device by cutting back to the device right before she jumps, or have it quickly explode in a white burst of light when she does jump. Not sure how it could work, just spitballing. Though I do think those two things, Holdo’s awareness of the device and a stronger correlation between the hyperspace jump and the hyperspace device, are important.
The more I think about the Last Jedi, the less I feel needs to be changed, but I think this might be interesting just to try and play with. Any thoughts on this?