TheBoost said:
If you can "hyperspace" directly to where you want to go... would there even be 'borders' or 'fronts' in any traditional sense?
So, if the enemy manages to control all the planets around Coruscant, does it even matter, or can the Coruscantees still be defended from people Hyperspacing in, and still exert their influence by just Hyperspacing passed their nearby enemies.
So, I've been thinking about this again...
Hyperspace is the same vector as A->B, but just compressed length, right? So, you have to be sure that your vector doesn't intersect any planets, stars, asteroids, gravity wells, etc, correct? That's what "calculating the jump to lightspeed" is, right? It's determining an exact vector that is free from any obstacles? What about space dust? What about other ships? If you accelerated dust particles to ~lightspeed, they would be just as deadly as bullets, right? So, does hyperspace travel include some sort of low level protection against minor stuff, but still have to avoid the planetary level stuff?
Wouldn't commerce, transportation and therefore armies (navies, etc.) probably all end up using the same vectors? Sort of like our "roads" today. A car is capable of driving on non roads, but it is less efficient and the possibility of an obstacle (say, a "tree") on the non-road is very high compared to the possibility on the road itself. That's why we all drive on roads when we don't have to, right?
So, despite the fact that ships can go anywhere->anywhere, it makes more sense that they would probably, all things being equal, prefer to be in known "hyperspace lanes"? And assuming that you can't turn (change vector) without dropping out of hyperspace, a trip from A to B is probably more like a trip from A to B to C to D, right?
There's one more feature of a road that makes me decide to drive on them almost exclusively- they generally build gas stations at regular intervals next to them. We don't know what kind of fuel Star Wars ships generally consume (if any) but we do see them pumping something fuellike into the X-Wings just prior to the DS's attack on Yavin. So surely, planets along popular hyperspace lanes, especially at the corners, would have deluxe refueling and refitting services available in orbit, right? Perhaps there's a decent vector A->C, but that bypasses the refueling station at B, so it really only makes sense to go A->B->C->D, right?
(I think it's interesting that Zahn suggests in HTTE that the Star Destroyer Chimera is faster in hyperspace than Luke's X-Wing (Thrawn observes Luke's hyperspace vector and then presumes he knows where he's going and estimates they can get there 3 days earlier) I almost would have assumed that it's the same hyperspace, why pay to get there faster?)
(It's also interesting in Zahn's books (and possibly other EU) that they specify the length of hyperspace travel often in "days". Again, I almost had the impression from the movies that anywhere->anywhere was nearly instantaneous. It's just getting stuck in an asteroid field without a working motivator that caused you to limp to Bespin over the course of a week.)