The Holdo Maneuver

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Sci-Fi Wi-Fi > The Holdo Maneuver

Kaysette: Jan 5, 2009; ~*Boston makes me*~
~*feel good*~

I think everyone pretty much agrees that Vice Admiral Holdo's lightspeed kamikaze was a stand out moment in the film. A lot of people are wondering about the implications though, and I think it's interesting to think about. So, here's my analysis. (Warning: Speculation heavy)

An Open Question
I think the first thing we need to consider when thinking about this moment is that it didn't actually introduce anything new to Star Wars. All it did was answer an open question. It's a question many of us never asked, including myself, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there.

This was something that was always possible within the framework of Star Wars. Prior to this film, we just didn't know how it would work out. But I think if you now ask yourself, without considering The Last Jedi at all, "What happens when a ship hits another ship at lightspeed?" you have to come to a conclusion relatively close to what we saw.

First of all, we know going into hyperspace is dangerous. Han tells us that without precise calculations, you'll fly into a planet or a star and that will end your trip real quick. Now, Han doesn't mention hitting other ships, but that makes sense. Ships are much smaller, more mobile, and less numerous than astronomical bodies. The chances of hitting one by accident are probably comparably small.

So we know hitting something at lightspeed is really bad news for you, but we don't know how the thing you hit fares. We start with a binary, either it's damaged or it isn't. While I think the most satisfying and intuitive answer is that it is damaged, it's also possible that it isn't. Perhaps the energy disperses into hyperspace and the target is fine, or something.

In fact, that could still be true, because we don't know if Holdo made it to hyperspace. One of the other things we know is that ships accelerate to lightspeed to punch into hyperspace, and the first and last bits of that process take place in real space. We see ships punch in and out of hyperspace, and they don't stop on a dime. That lead in and tail to hyperspace jumps is probably kilometers at minimum.

In fact, we don't know if Han even meant to imply that you could hit things while in hyperspace. Maybe he only meant during this time of rapid acceleration or deceleration in real space. Calculate wrong, and you come out of hyperspace like you were shot out of a cannon into a planet's surface.

So in my opinion, even without The Last Jedi telling us, it makes the most sense to conclude that hitting something at lightspeed is bad news.

So how bad is it? Well, it seems like it should be pretty devastating, shouldn't it? If Star Wars obeyed real world physics, it'd probably be way worse than what we see in TLJ, I think. I think the portrayal in TLJ actually rode the line pretty well between making it scary and powerful and avoiding putting a super weapon on every ship.

So if we look at what happened in TLJ and accept that it makes sense, other questions arise. The biggest one being "Why doesn't this happen all the time?" So now I'm going to look at those. (Warning: Speculation intensifies.)

A Tactical Analysis
So, the benefits of ramming ships at lightspeed are pretty obvious. Why aren't we building lightspeed missiles?

Well, first of all let's look at the actual effect of Holdo's attack. The light show was pretty drat spectacular, but what actually happened?

At the cost of her life and The Raddus, the Resistance's likely irreplaceable flagship, Holdo crippled the Supremacy and destroyed 4-6 of the First Order's 12 support destroyers.

Ignoring the economic implications of this particular attack (I'll get to that later), that's a pretty solid trade. The Raddus is a bigger ship than those star destroyers, but much smaller than The Supremacy.

Still, the Supremacy wasn't fully destroyed. Most of the people on board actually seemed to be just fine. With a major breach like that, it would likely make a pretty appealing target, though. It seems likely its shields would have been down and it would be incapable of maneuvering, much less jumping to hyperspace.

However, it would probably still have teeth. Clearly its entire compliment of starfighters wasn't necessarily lost, because Kylo's shuttle is fine, and the surface of that ship is still covered in likely operational guns. The systems inside the ship seem to be functioning after the attack, at least.

Those Resurgents really didn't fare well though. Even if the Supremacy can be recovered and repaired, those star destroyers are scrap and the crews likely took heavy if not complete casualties.

The conditions for the Raddus' attack were pretty much ideal, however.

First of all, while fleets in Star Wars don't seem to take advantage of the expanse of space (I'm looking at you, Resistance bombers), I think the First Order fleet was uncommonly close together. They were in a chase, and basically all in a line.

While the Supremacy is a huge ship, it's still a small shadow for 12 Resurgents to inhabit. All of them were right in that shadow. Still, even though all of them were danger close to The Supremacy, only a handful of them took the hit.

The Holdo Maneuver basically looked like a lightsaber strike. Vast amounts of power, focused into a relatively small area. The flare afterwards didn't seem to deal any noticeable secondary damage. In a normal fleet engagement, you'd probably be hard pressed to hit more than two ships.

Then we have an issue of range. The Raddus was out of engagement range with the First Order fleet, which implies most fleet action takes place at much closer range. Presumably these ships don't remain at maximum weapons range during typical combat.

This may have put The Raddus in the sweet spot. Any closer, and it wouldn't have nearly as much acceleration to deal as much damage. Any further, and it might just make the jump, and who knows if the collision still happens in that case. Also, perhaps the level of damage we witnessed was contingent upon hitting the enemy vessel just as the ship began to breach into hyperspace?

Further, The Raddus is a beast of a ship. It's huge. It's slightly longer than a Resurgent class Star Destroyer, which is twice as big as an Imperial Star Destroyer. It's size likely plays a role in the damage dealt.

So while the damage was significant, perhaps if you scaled down the attack to something like a hyperspace missile, maybe the effect wouldn't be nearly as impressive. Perhaps it would have devastating penetrating power, but a small damage cross section. Essentially, a hyperspace missile might just punch an inconvenient but manageable hole through a ship.

Alright, so maybe it's not often a suitably viable strategy. But still, it has its uses, obviously. Holdo demonstrated that it can be effective. So why doesn't this happen all the time?

Well, we don't actually know that it doesn't. We've never seen it before, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. The Star Wars galaxy is a big place, with a long history, and we've only seen a little of it. I'd actually say that The Last Jedi implies that this does happen with some regularity.

First of all, Holdo thinks to do it at all. Maybe she's just being really innovative and trying something totally new, but more likely, she knew it would work. At the very least, she thought it likely enough to work that it was worth sacrificing her life and The Raddus attempting it over any other plan.

Secondly, Poe immediately knows what she is doing, and Hux and the Captain of the Supremacy figure it out pretty quickly. I think it's pretty likely that they all probably know that such an attack is theoretically possible.

So if such an attack is possible and Holdo wasn't the first to think of it, why didn't they use this technique against the Death Star?

Well, I'm still skeptical that such an attack would be effective. First of all the Rebel Alliance's largest ship, Home One, was half the size of The Raddus. Secondly, Death Stars are pretty tough.

We see The Executor, a ship more than an order of magnitude larger than Home One, crash into the Death Star II with little effect. Granted, it does so very slowly, but it still shows the Death Stars are tough.

Also, the Death Star I is 160 km in diameter. It's huge. A ramming attack, even at lightspeed, may not penetrate to the core.

Finally, maybe it was just too expensive...

An Economic Analysis
Wait, too expensive?! To take out a Death Star?! Well... Yeah.

The Rebellion had less than half a dozen MC80s like Home One at their peak, and they didn't have a nation backing them. At the time of the Battle of Yavin I'd be surprised if they had more than one or two MC80s, and they couldn't just order up replacements. The destruction of the Death Star is what bought them the support to expand their fleet.

I genuinely think that since Yavin is an uncivilized planet and the base is already compromised, the Rebellion would rather evacuate the base and let the planet be destroyed than sacrifice one of these priceless assets on an uncertain plan. Fortunately, they had a better, less costly plan.

So why not build a hyperspace bullet out of a huge chunk of metal or an asteroid with nothing but a hyperdrive on it and slam it into the Death Star? Well, the first time they didn't have time.

As for the second time, I think a plausible excuse might be that it just wouldn't be within their economic power. I think it's very likely that the core cost of a vessel is its hyperdrive.

I doubt that the hyperdrive on a snubfighter can move a capital ship into hyperspace. I'm betting that the bigger the thing you want to move, the more powerful and complex the hyperdrive needs to be. I think that means it's likely that in comparison to the materials cost of the rest of the ship, the designing and building of a hyperdrive is probably by far the most expensive part.

This would mean that it wouldn't be significantly less expensive or feasible to design a hyperspace bullet than it would just to build a ship around the same hyperdrive.

Perhaps the cost of a hyperdrive scales exponentially with how much mass it needs to move. Moving small freighters is easy enough that normal citizens can afford to own them, but moving a capital ship might be significantly more difficult and expensive.

If you make your hyperspace bullet small enough to be economically viable, it's not effective enough to justify the cost. If you make it big enough to be tactically viable, it's too expensive and difficult an engineering project to be economically viable for a militia.

But surely that doesn't apply to the Empire. They love extravagantly expensive weapons of mass destruction, why don't they have this in their arsenal?

Well, here again we don't actually know for sure they don't. Maybe we just never see them use it. But I think it's more likely they just have better options. It's probably a lot cheaper and more effective to just unload on a target with a Star Destroyer's formidable weapons platform.

Hell, if they could keep the drat things around long enough to see a return on their investment, it's probably more economical to fire the Death Star than it would be to build a single use hyperspace bullet.

Too long! Didn't read.
So in summary, I think it's plausible to say that the Holdo Maneuver is only effective enough to be tactically and economically viable in a moment of extreme desperation, and even then only in a moment of perfect opportunity.

I recognize this is all speculation, and that the real answer boils down to "because it's a space fantasy franchise and no one has decided to include this before." If you hate this, I'm not really out to convince you. This is just what I like about Star Wars. I like thinking about this stuff and trying to understand the world as best I can, and I like sharing those thoughts.

I find it more fun to rationalize the world I'm presented with than to deconstruct it. I prefer to ask "Why does this work?" rather than contemplate why it doesn't or shouldn't. I'm in no way saying criticism isn't valid, just that I prefer to patch a plot hole rather than fall in, if I can.

# ? Jan 23, 2020 20:16

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 20:22

Flavius Aetass: Mar 30, 2011

i don't like it more because regardless of what justification may or may not exist in-universe, it's the most blatant example that the people making the movie just didn't give a poo poo about the universe and just wanted to make a big money blockbuster

# ? Jan 23, 2020 20:21

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

the sequels suck op

# ? Jan 23, 2020 20:34

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

yea

# ? Jan 23, 2020 20:52

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

I totally read that post

# ? Jan 23, 2020 20:52

Scrub-Niggurath: Nov 27, 2007

Kaysette posted:

I think everyone pretty much agrees that Vice Admiral Holdo's lightspeed kamikaze was a stand out moment in the film. A lot of people are wondering about the implications though, and I think it's interesting to think about. So, here's my analysis. (Warning: Speculation heavy)

An Open Question
I think the first thing we need to consider when thinking about this moment is that it didn't actually introduce anything new to Star Wars. All it did was answer an open question. It's a question many of us never asked, including myself, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there.

This was something that was always possible within the framework of Star Wars. Prior to this film, we just didn't know how it would work out. But I think if you now ask yourself, without considering The Last Jedi at all, "What happens when a ship hits another ship at lightspeed?" you have to come to a conclusion relatively close to what we saw.

First of all, we know going into hyperspace is dangerous. Han tells us that without precise calculations, you'll fly into a planet or a star and that will end your trip real quick. Now, Han doesn't mention hitting other ships, but that makes sense. Ships are much smaller, more mobile, and less numerous than astronomical bodies. The chances of hitting one by accident are probably comparably small.

So we know hitting something at lightspeed is really bad news for you, but we don't know how the thing you hit fares. We start with a binary, either it's damaged or it isn't. While I think the most satisfying and intuitive answer is that it is damaged, it's also possible that it isn't. Perhaps the energy disperses into hyperspace and the target is fine, or something.

In fact, that could still be true, because we don't know if Holdo made it to hyperspace. One of the other things we know is that ships accelerate to lightspeed to punch into hyperspace, and the first and last bits of that process take place in real space. We see ships punch in and out of hyperspace, and they don't stop on a dime. That lead in and tail to hyperspace jumps is probably kilometers at minimum.

In fact, we don't know if Han even meant to imply that you could hit things while in hyperspace. Maybe he only meant during this time of rapid acceleration or deceleration in real space. Calculate wrong, and you come out of hyperspace like you were shot out of a cannon into a planet's surface.

So in my opinion, even without The Last Jedi telling us, it makes the most sense to conclude that hitting something at lightspeed is bad news.

So how bad is it? Well, it seems like it should be pretty devastating, shouldn't it? If Star Wars obeyed real world physics, it'd probably be way worse than what we see in TLJ, I think. I think the portrayal in TLJ actually rode the line pretty well between making it scary and powerful and avoiding putting a super weapon on every ship.

So if we look at what happened in TLJ and accept that it makes sense, other questions arise. The biggest one being "Why doesn't this happen all the time?" So now I'm going to look at those. (Warning: Speculation intensifies.)

A Tactical Analysis
So, the benefits of ramming ships at lightspeed are pretty obvious. Why aren't we building lightspeed missiles?

Well, first of all let's look at the actual effect of Holdo's attack. The light show was pretty drat spectacular, but what actually happened?

At the cost of her life and The Raddus, the Resistance's likely irreplaceable flagship, Holdo crippled the Supremacy and destroyed 4-6 of the First Order's 12 support destroyers.

Ignoring the economic implications of this particular attack (I'll get to that later), that's a pretty solid trade. The Raddus is a bigger ship than those star destroyers, but much smaller than The Supremacy.

Still, the Supremacy wasn't fully destroyed. Most of the people on board actually seemed to be just fine. With a major breach like that, it would likely make a pretty appealing target, though. It seems likely its shields would have been down and it would be incapable of maneuvering, much less jumping to hyperspace.

However, it would probably still have teeth. Clearly its entire compliment of starfighters wasn't necessarily lost, because Kylo's shuttle is fine, and the surface of that ship is still covered in likely operational guns. The systems inside the ship seem to be functioning after the attack, at least.

Those Resurgents really didn't fare well though. Even if the Supremacy can be recovered and repaired, those star destroyers are scrap and the crews likely took heavy if not complete casualties.

The conditions for the Raddus' attack were pretty much ideal, however.

First of all, while fleets in Star Wars don't seem to take advantage of the expanse of space (I'm looking at you, Resistance bombers), I think the First Order fleet was uncommonly close together. They were in a chase, and basically all in a line.

While the Supremacy is a huge ship, it's still a small shadow for 12 Resurgents to inhabit. All of them were right in that shadow. Still, even though all of them were danger close to The Supremacy, only a handful of them took the hit.

The Holdo Maneuver basically looked like a lightsaber strike. Vast amounts of power, focused into a relatively small area. The flare afterwards didn't seem to deal any noticeable secondary damage. In a normal fleet engagement, you'd probably be hard pressed to hit more than two ships.

Then we have an issue of range. The Raddus was out of engagement range with the First Order fleet, which implies most fleet action takes place at much closer range. Presumably these ships don't remain at maximum weapons range during typical combat.

This may have put The Raddus in the sweet spot. Any closer, and it wouldn't have nearly as much acceleration to deal as much damage. Any further, and it might just make the jump, and who knows if the collision still happens in that case. Also, perhaps the level of damage we witnessed was contingent upon hitting the enemy vessel just as the ship began to breach into hyperspace?

Further, The Raddus is a beast of a ship. It's huge. It's slightly longer than a Resurgent class Star Destroyer, which is twice as big as an Imperial Star Destroyer. It's size likely plays a role in the damage dealt.

So while the damage was significant, perhaps if you scaled down the attack to something like a hyperspace missile, maybe the effect wouldn't be nearly as impressive. Perhaps it would have devastating penetrating power, but a small damage cross section. Essentially, a hyperspace missile might just punch an inconvenient but manageable hole through a ship.

Alright, so maybe it's not often a suitably viable strategy. But still, it has its uses, obviously. Holdo demonstrated that it can be effective. So why doesn't this happen all the time?

Well, we don't actually know that it doesn't. We've never seen it before, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. The Star Wars galaxy is a big place, with a long history, and we've only seen a little of it. I'd actually say that The Last Jedi implies that this does happen with some regularity.

First of all, Holdo thinks to do it at all. Maybe she's just being really innovative and trying something totally new, but more likely, she knew it would work. At the very least, she thought it likely enough to work that it was worth sacrificing her life and The Raddus attempting it over any other plan.

Secondly, Poe immediately knows what she is doing, and Hux and the Captain of the Supremacy figure it out pretty quickly. I think it's pretty likely that they all probably know that such an attack is theoretically possible.

So if such an attack is possible and Holdo wasn't the first to think of it, why didn't they use this technique against the Death Star?

Well, I'm still skeptical that such an attack would be effective. First of all the Rebel Alliance's largest ship, Home One, was half the size of The Raddus. Secondly, Death Stars are pretty tough.

We see The Executor, a ship more than an order of magnitude larger than Home One, crash into the Death Star II with little effect. Granted, it does so very slowly, but it still shows the Death Stars are tough.

Also, the Death Star I is 160 km in diameter. It's huge. A ramming attack, even at lightspeed, may not penetrate to the core.

Finally, maybe it was just too expensive...

An Economic Analysis
Wait, too expensive?! To take out a Death Star?! Well... Yeah.

The Rebellion had less than half a dozen MC80s like Home One at their peak, and they didn't have a nation backing them. At the time of the Battle of Yavin I'd be surprised if they had more than one or two MC80s, and they couldn't just order up replacements. The destruction of the Death Star is what bought them the support to expand their fleet.

I genuinely think that since Yavin is an uncivilized planet and the base is already compromised, the Rebellion would rather evacuate the base and let the planet be destroyed than sacrifice one of these priceless assets on an uncertain plan. Fortunately, they had a better, less costly plan.

So why not build a hyperspace bullet out of a huge chunk of metal or an asteroid with nothing but a hyperdrive on it and slam it into the Death Star? Well, the first time they didn't have time.

As for the second time, I think a plausible excuse might be that it just wouldn't be within their economic power. I think it's very likely that the core cost of a vessel is its hyperdrive.

I doubt that the hyperdrive on a snubfighter can move a capital ship into hyperspace. I'm betting that the bigger the thing you want to move, the more powerful and complex the hyperdrive needs to be. I think that means it's likely that in comparison to the materials cost of the rest of the ship, the designing and building of a hyperdrive is probably by far the most expensive part.

This would mean that it wouldn't be significantly less expensive or feasible to design a hyperspace bullet than it would just to build a ship around the same hyperdrive.

Perhaps the cost of a hyperdrive scales exponentially with how much mass it needs to move. Moving small freighters is easy enough that normal citizens can afford to own them, but moving a capital ship might be significantly more difficult and expensive.

If you make your hyperspace bullet small enough to be economically viable, it's not effective enough to justify the cost. If you make it big enough to be tactically viable, it's too expensive and difficult an engineering project to be economically viable for a militia.

But surely that doesn't apply to the Empire. They love extravagantly expensive weapons of mass destruction, why don't they have this in their arsenal?

Well, here again we don't actually know for sure they don't. Maybe we just never see them use it. But I think it's more likely they just have better options. It's probably a lot cheaper and more effective to just unload on a target with a Star Destroyer's formidable weapons platform.

Hell, if they could keep the drat things around long enough to see a return on their investment, it's probably more economical to fire the Death Star than it would be to build a single use hyperspace bullet.

Too long! Didn't read.
So in summary, I think it's plausible to say that the Holdo Maneuver is only effective enough to be tactically and economically viable in a moment of extreme desperation, and even then only in a moment of perfect opportunity.

I recognize this is all speculation, and that the real answer boils down to "because it's a space fantasy franchise and no one has decided to include this before." If you hate this, I'm not really out to convince you. This is just what I like about Star Wars. I like thinking about this stuff and trying to understand the world as best I can, and I like sharing those thoughts.

I find it more fun to rationalize the world I'm presented with than to deconstruct it. I prefer to ask "Why does this work?" rather than contemplate why it doesn't or shouldn't. I'm in no way saying criticism isn't valid, just that I prefer to patch a plot hole rather than fall in, if I can.

yeah but what about her purple hair

# ? Jan 23, 2020 20:54

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

So like E=mc² so I guess you're saying in the SW universe that it isn't true, or wasn't until Rian Johnson RUINED IT. You crash a loving snubfighter at lightspeed into a moon it's going to gently caress it up, unless physics are different in this far, far away galaxy.

Anyway the reason it happened is because Movies Aren't Real and no matter how consistent the star wars continuity is, it'll never be a place you can go and live.

# ? Jan 23, 2020 20:56

Kaysette: Jan 5, 2009; ~*Boston makes me*~
~*feel good*~

Pollyanna posted:

I totally read that post

good because i definitely wrote it

# ? Jan 23, 2020 20:57

Up Circle: Apr 3, 2008

Do al those paragraphs spell out a joke with the first letter or something, no offense but that formatting makes my eyes hurt.

# ? Jan 23, 2020 20:57

alnilam: Nov 10, 2009

zoux posted:

So like E=mc² so I guess you're saying in the SW universe that it isn't true, or wasn't until Rian Johnson RUINED IT. You crash a loving snubfighter at lightspeed into a moon it's going to gently caress it up, unless physics are different in this far, far away galaxy.

Anyway the reason it happened is because Movies Aren't Real and no matter how consistent the star wars continuity is, it'll never be a place you can go and live.

I think you mean E=1/2mv² in this case

_{ty manifisto}

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:06

alnilam: Nov 10, 2009

I read your entire post op and i agree it's fun to think / speculate about things

even if the filmmakers' motivation was elsewhere ($$$) who cares death of the author bithc

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:07

Mooey Cow: Jan 27, 2018; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS; Pillbug

OP that post was one in a million.

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:08

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

alnilam posted:

I think you mean E=1/2mv² in this case

Well whatever the equation is that makes fast stuff explode big

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:08

Mooey Cow: Jan 27, 2018; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS; Pillbug

E² = m²c⁴ + p²c² imo

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:11

Flavius Aetass: Mar 30, 2011

alnilam posted:

I read your entire post op and i agree it's fun to think / speculate about things

even if the filmmakers' motivation was elsewhere ($$$) who cares death of the author bithc

I agree but as much as I think one can take Star Wars way too seriously, they probably shouldn't put people in charge of it who think the concept of canon is dumbass nerd poo poo

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:11

Flavius Aetass: Mar 30, 2011

zoux posted:

Well whatever the equation is that makes fast stuff explode big

9/11 = Q

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:13

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Flavius Aetass posted:

9/11 = Q

....of course...

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:15

Kaysette: Jan 5, 2009; ~*Boston makes me*~
~*feel good*~

Flavius Aetass posted:

9/11 = Q

woah...

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:15

Sinnlos: Sep 5, 2011; Ask me about believing in magical rainbow gold

In Star Wars they use lasers or missiles that explode if they go too far. This is probably because it looks cooler, but also because a mass in space will keep traveling until it hits something. The Holdo Maneuver is actually a war crime, due to the risk of an uncalculated and blind hyperspace jump eventually running into an inhabited planet.

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:17

Flavius Aetass: Mar 30, 2011

leia: alderaan is peaceful! we have no weapons!

vader, to tarkin: she's right, you know. this isn't in our ROE

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:20

Mooey Cow: Jan 27, 2018; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS; Pillbug

In TROS apparently all blind hyperspace jumps somehow end up in the middle of random planets instead of in space.

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:21

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

imo everyone kind of shrugs off the complete destruction of millions of lives and an entire planet too easily but it fits in with the "SW is WWII actually" and planets are more analogous to cities I guess. Cara Dune is Alderaani and I think she's the first person to show like actual anger at the specific destruction of Alderaan, albeit indirectly, at least so far as I recall.

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:24

Sinnlos: Sep 5, 2011; Ask me about believing in magical rainbow gold

I really love how TROS begins with introducing this concept of hyperspace skipping like it is gonna be important later, and then completely forgets about the big thing they set up.

# ? Jan 23, 2020 21:25

Flavius Aetass: Mar 30, 2011

they needed to get away from the hyperspace tracking without a homing beacon idea somehow

# ? Jan 23, 2020 22:55

Fsmhunk: Jul 19, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

She was running from a T-Rex and the mirror of her space ship made her think it was farther away than it actually was. She had no choice.

# ? Jan 23, 2020 23:24

Rivethead: Feb 22, 2008

The wake created by going into hyperspace is what caused Snoke's ship to split in half. Sheesh. It's not that hard.

# ? Jan 24, 2020 00:07

Flavius Aetass: Mar 30, 2011

Rivethead posted:

The wake created by going into hyperspace is what caused Snoke's ship to split in half. Sheesh. It's not that hard.

# ? Jan 24, 2020 00:20

Abysswalker: Apr 25, 2013

Kaysette posted:

I think everyone pretty much agrees that Vice Admiral Holdo's lightspeed kamikaze was a stand out moment in the film. A lot of people are wondering about the implications though, and I think it's interesting to think about. So, here's my analysis. (Warning: Speculation heavy)

An Open Question
I think the first thing we need to consider when thinking about this moment is that it didn't actually introduce anything new to Star Wars. All it did was answer an open question. It's a question many of us never asked, including myself, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there.

This was something that was always possible within the framework of Star Wars. Prior to this film, we just didn't know how it would work out. But I think if you now ask yourself, without considering The Last Jedi at all, "What happens when a ship hits another ship at lightspeed?" you have to come to a conclusion relatively close to what we saw.

First of all, we know going into hyperspace is dangerous. Han tells us that without precise calculations, you'll fly into a planet or a star and that will end your trip real quick. Now, Han doesn't mention hitting other ships, but that makes sense. Ships are much smaller, more mobile, and less numerous than astronomical bodies. The chances of hitting one by accident are probably comparably small.

So we know hitting something at lightspeed is really bad news for you, but we don't know how the thing you hit fares. We start with a binary, either it's damaged or it isn't. While I think the most satisfying and intuitive answer is that it is damaged, it's also possible that it isn't. Perhaps the energy disperses into hyperspace and the target is fine, or something.

In fact, that could still be true, because we don't know if Holdo made it to hyperspace. One of the other things we know is that ships accelerate to lightspeed to punch into hyperspace, and the first and last bits of that process take place in real space. We see ships punch in and out of hyperspace, and they don't stop on a dime. That lead in and tail to hyperspace jumps is probably kilometers at minimum.

In fact, we don't know if Han even meant to imply that you could hit things while in hyperspace. Maybe he only meant during this time of rapid acceleration or deceleration in real space. Calculate wrong, and you come out of hyperspace like you were shot out of a cannon into a planet's surface.

So in my opinion, even without The Last Jedi telling us, it makes the most sense to conclude that hitting something at lightspeed is bad news.

So how bad is it? Well, it seems like it should be pretty devastating, shouldn't it? If Star Wars obeyed real world physics, it'd probably be way worse than what we see in TLJ, I think. I think the portrayal in TLJ actually rode the line pretty well between making it scary and powerful and avoiding putting a super weapon on every ship.

So if we look at what happened in TLJ and accept that it makes sense, other questions arise. The biggest one being "Why doesn't this happen all the time?" So now I'm going to look at those. (Warning: Speculation intensifies.)

A Tactical Analysis
So, the benefits of ramming ships at lightspeed are pretty obvious. Why aren't we building lightspeed missiles?

Well, first of all let's look at the actual effect of Holdo's attack. The light show was pretty drat spectacular, but what actually happened?

At the cost of her life and The Raddus, the Resistance's likely irreplaceable flagship, Holdo crippled the Supremacy and destroyed 4-6 of the First Order's 12 support destroyers.

Ignoring the economic implications of this particular attack (I'll get to that later), that's a pretty solid trade. The Raddus is a bigger ship than those star destroyers, but much smaller than The Supremacy.

Still, the Supremacy wasn't fully destroyed. Most of the people on board actually seemed to be just fine. With a major breach like that, it would likely make a pretty appealing target, though. It seems likely its shields would have been down and it would be incapable of maneuvering, much less jumping to hyperspace.

However, it would probably still have teeth. Clearly its entire compliment of starfighters wasn't necessarily lost, because Kylo's shuttle is fine, and the surface of that ship is still covered in likely operational guns. The systems inside the ship seem to be functioning after the attack, at least.

Those Resurgents really didn't fare well though. Even if the Supremacy can be recovered and repaired, those star destroyers are scrap and the crews likely took heavy if not complete casualties.

The conditions for the Raddus' attack were pretty much ideal, however.

First of all, while fleets in Star Wars don't seem to take advantage of the expanse of space (I'm looking at you, Resistance bombers), I think the First Order fleet was uncommonly close together. They were in a chase, and basically all in a line.

While the Supremacy is a huge ship, it's still a small shadow for 12 Resurgents to inhabit. All of them were right in that shadow. Still, even though all of them were danger close to The Supremacy, only a handful of them took the hit.

The Holdo Maneuver basically looked like a lightsaber strike. Vast amounts of power, focused into a relatively small area. The flare afterwards didn't seem to deal any noticeable secondary damage. In a normal fleet engagement, you'd probably be hard pressed to hit more than two ships.

Then we have an issue of range. The Raddus was out of engagement range with the First Order fleet, which implies most fleet action takes place at much closer range. Presumably these ships don't remain at maximum weapons range during typical combat.

This may have put The Raddus in the sweet spot. Any closer, and it wouldn't have nearly as much acceleration to deal as much damage. Any further, and it might just make the jump, and who knows if the collision still happens in that case. Also, perhaps the level of damage we witnessed was contingent upon hitting the enemy vessel just as the ship began to breach into hyperspace?

Further, The Raddus is a beast of a ship. It's huge. It's slightly longer than a Resurgent class Star Destroyer, which is twice as big as an Imperial Star Destroyer. It's size likely plays a role in the damage dealt.

So while the damage was significant, perhaps if you scaled down the attack to something like a hyperspace missile, maybe the effect wouldn't be nearly as impressive. Perhaps it would have devastating penetrating power, but a small damage cross section. Essentially, a hyperspace missile might just punch an inconvenient but manageable hole through a ship.

Alright, so maybe it's not often a suitably viable strategy. But still, it has its uses, obviously. Holdo demonstrated that it can be effective. So why doesn't this happen all the time?

Well, we don't actually know that it doesn't. We've never seen it before, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. The Star Wars galaxy is a big place, with a long history, and we've only seen a little of it. I'd actually say that The Last Jedi implies that this does happen with some regularity.

First of all, Holdo thinks to do it at all. Maybe she's just being really innovative and trying something totally new, but more likely, she knew it would work. At the very least, she thought it likely enough to work that it was worth sacrificing her life and The Raddus attempting it over any other plan.

Secondly, Poe immediately knows what she is doing, and Hux and the Captain of the Supremacy figure it out pretty quickly. I think it's pretty likely that they all probably know that such an attack is theoretically possible.

So if such an attack is possible and Holdo wasn't the first to think of it, why didn't they use this technique against the Death Star?

Well, I'm still skeptical that such an attack would be effective. First of all the Rebel Alliance's largest ship, Home One, was half the size of The Raddus. Secondly, Death Stars are pretty tough.

We see The Executor, a ship more than an order of magnitude larger than Home One, crash into the Death Star II with little effect. Granted, it does so very slowly, but it still shows the Death Stars are tough.

Also, the Death Star I is 160 km in diameter. It's huge. A ramming attack, even at lightspeed, may not penetrate to the core.

Finally, maybe it was just too expensive...

An Economic Analysis
Wait, too expensive?! To take out a Death Star?! Well... Yeah.

The Rebellion had less than half a dozen MC80s like Home One at their peak, and they didn't have a nation backing them. At the time of the Battle of Yavin I'd be surprised if they had more than one or two MC80s, and they couldn't just order up replacements. The destruction of the Death Star is what bought them the support to expand their fleet.

I genuinely think that since Yavin is an uncivilized planet and the base is already compromised, the Rebellion would rather evacuate the base and let the planet be destroyed than sacrifice one of these priceless assets on an uncertain plan. Fortunately, they had a better, less costly plan.

So why not build a hyperspace bullet out of a huge chunk of metal or an asteroid with nothing but a hyperdrive on it and slam it into the Death Star? Well, the first time they didn't have time.

As for the second time, I think a plausible excuse might be that it just wouldn't be within their economic power. I think it's very likely that the core cost of a vessel is its hyperdrive.

I doubt that the hyperdrive on a snubfighter can move a capital ship into hyperspace. I'm betting that the bigger the thing you want to move, the more powerful and complex the hyperdrive needs to be. I think that means it's likely that in comparison to the materials cost of the rest of the ship, the designing and building of a hyperdrive is probably by far the most expensive part.

This would mean that it wouldn't be significantly less expensive or feasible to design a hyperspace bullet than it would just to build a ship around the same hyperdrive.

Perhaps the cost of a hyperdrive scales exponentially with how much mass it needs to move. Moving small freighters is easy enough that normal citizens can afford to own them, but moving a capital ship might be significantly more difficult and expensive.

If you make your hyperspace bullet small enough to be economically viable, it's not effective enough to justify the cost. If you make it big enough to be tactically viable, it's too expensive and difficult an engineering project to be economically viable for a militia.

But surely that doesn't apply to the Empire. They love extravagantly expensive weapons of mass destruction, why don't they have this in their arsenal?

Well, here again we don't actually know for sure they don't. Maybe we just never see them use it. But I think it's more likely they just have better options. It's probably a lot cheaper and more effective to just unload on a target with a Star Destroyer's formidable weapons platform.

Hell, if they could keep the drat things around long enough to see a return on their investment, it's probably more economical to fire the Death Star than it would be to build a single use hyperspace bullet.

Too long! Didn't read.
So in summary, I think it's plausible to say that the Holdo Maneuver is only effective enough to be tactically and economically viable in a moment of extreme desperation, and even then only in a moment of perfect opportunity.

I recognize this is all speculation, and that the real answer boils down to "because it's a space fantasy franchise and no one has decided to include this before." If you hate this, I'm not really out to convince you. This is just what I like about Star Wars. I like thinking about this stuff and trying to understand the world as best I can, and I like sharing those thoughts.

I find it more fun to rationalize the world I'm presented with than to deconstruct it. I prefer to ask "Why does this work?" rather than contemplate why it doesn't or shouldn't. I'm in no way saying criticism isn't valid, just that I prefer to patch a plot hole rather than fall in, if I can.

same here OP

# ? Jan 24, 2020 00:39

Squizzle: Apr 24, 2008

talyn.......

starburst!!!!

# ? Jan 24, 2020 01:16

ungulateman: Apr 18, 2012; pretentious fuckwit who isn't half as literate or insightful or clever as he thinks he is

i actually did like your post, op. i'm not typically one for watsonian explanations of how stories work but i appreciate that it matters to you and you found a way to talk about it in an interesting matter.

if there weren't already seven billion star wars youtube channels dedicated to watsonian explanations/complaints about things, i would recommend making this a video essay

# ? Jan 24, 2020 01:27

Saint Drogo: Dec 26, 2011

that scene looked real good but spaceship ramming is an extremely boring & predictable card to pull in scifi.

maybe they should have redeemed two birds with one stone by having Rose Tico come up with a crazy improvised hyperdrive mod to make it happen.

# ? Jan 24, 2020 01:30

2house2fly: Nov 14, 2012; You did a super job wrapping things up! And I'm not just saying that because I have to!

It was cool and it's funny that Disney put a line in the next movie about how it actually wasn't cool, as like an apology to the fans. Sorry we included a cool scene everyone

# ? Jan 24, 2020 01:47

alnilam: Nov 10, 2009

Squizzle posted:

talyn.......

starburst!!!!

talyn

# ? Jan 24, 2020 01:55

Caidin: Oct 29, 2011

Squizzle posted:

talyn.......

starburst!!!!

Pfft, Starcrash did it better you hacks.

# ? Jan 24, 2020 01:57

Shbobdb: Dec 16, 2010; by Reene

It should have been Leia. And Leia should have explicitly left Han for Holdo after their irreconcilable differences that made them pawn off their son to his child molesting uncle.

# ? Jan 24, 2020 02:02

Flavius Aetass: Mar 30, 2011

it should have been ackbar so he could say allahu ackbar when he pushes the throttle

# ? Jan 24, 2020 02:54

Kaysette: Jan 5, 2009; ~*Boston makes me*~
~*feel good*~

Flavius Aetass posted:

it should have been ackbar so he could say allahu ackbar when he pushes the throttle

lmao

# ? Jan 24, 2020 05:50

Kaysette: Jan 5, 2009; ~*Boston makes me*~
~*feel good*~

Resistance hobbit: �what about Holdo maneuver?�
Grizzled vet: �that�s a one-in-a-million chance�
RH: �we�ve had one, yes�

# ? Jan 24, 2020 05:52

Menacer: Nov 25, 2000; Failed Sega Accessory Ahoy!

hey if science matters or whatever how do star war ships stop

# ? Jan 24, 2020 05:56

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 19, 2024 20:22

ungulateman: Apr 18, 2012; pretentious fuckwit who isn't half as literate or insightful or clever as he thinks he is

Menacer posted:

hey if science matters or whatever how do star war ships stop

reverse thrusters are a thing

# ? Jan 24, 2020 07:29

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Sci-Fi Wi-Fi > The Holdo Maneuver

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