Why are planetary blockades confined to a single point of a planet instead of being sphere shell shaped around the planet? (I know, it would take an awful lot of spaceships.)
Also, when a rebel ship wants to escape from a planet and there is a single star destroyer hovering in the atmosphere (or some more of them further up, like in the Empire Strikes Back) how come it's not a viable maneuver to fly low altitude for a couple of hundred kilometers horizontally (they would be out of the single-point blockade), then make a vertical dash upwards?
Answer
It mainly comes down to hyperspace
Long-distance travel in Star Wars is via hyperspace lanes, which are not extraordinarily plentiful. At least for further-flung planets, having two hyperspace lanes is unusual:
Trying to lock down traffic here would be a tall order, since Denon rested at the intersection of two of the galaxy’s most well-traveled hyperspace lanes.
Heir to the Jedi
In order to leave a planet through hyperspace, a ship needs to get to a hyperspace lane. Any such entrance must also be reasonably far away from the planet, since the planet casts a mass shadow in hyperspace that would make jumping impossible.
Positioning capital ships in or around the hyperspace lanes needed to leave a system could therefore efficiently block escape with only a few ships. To escape, a ship will at least need to go near the capital ships.
At least later on, a blockade could have Imperial Interdictors or similar ships equipped with gravity-well projectors, capable both of pulling ships out of hyperspace, and (crucially) preventing them from reaching hyperspace in the first place.
“What? But Artoo plotted a course using established—oh.” We’d been pulled out of hyperspace by an Imperial Interdictor cruiser—shaped like a Star Destroyer but much smaller, with four gravity-well projectors. One of those projectors had pulled us out of hyperspace, and no doubt the others were blocking our exit from the system. We couldn’t leave without dealing with the Interdictor. So be it.
Heir to the Jedi
Thus targeting the Interdictors might be the only way of breaking the blockade.
It’s probably worth noting here that it is possible to make a jump that does not utilize an established hyperspace lane:
“Our best options for achieving our goal rest in taking two steps: One, abandon the Desert Jewel and secure alternative transport offplanet. The Jewel is too recognizable now, and we would attract attention as soon as we left the hangar. However, a repaired ship can be traded or sold for another. Two, forge an entirely new hyperspace lane between here and Omereth—one that the Empire cannot possibly be blocking.”
“Can we even do that?” Nakari asked. I was surprised she hadn’t immediately vetoed the idea of abandoning her ship.
“Yeah, I’ve done it before,” I said. “With the Jewel, in fact. It was just a short trip to throw off any pursuit as I was returning to the rebel fleet, but Artoo is brilliant that way. How long a jump are you proposing, Drusil?”
Heir to the Jedi
However, this is apparently quite a difficult proposition. For one, Nakari didn’t know it could be done, and that Luke had done it before was attributed to R2-D2 being “brilliant.” It was only due to Drusil’s careful mathematical calculations that heading out in an unknown hyperspace direction was not suicide. Further, it is still necessary to get around the mass shadows created by the interdictors (not to mention that of the planet):
“The Empire’s Interdictors are blocking egress here, here, and here.” She pointed with a pale finger to the three yellow dots. “I have indicated the mass shadows of their gravity projectors with blue lines. So to escape, we must plot a course out of the system in between those mass shadows and travel a goodly distance offplanet before the hyperdrive can engage. And you see that there are several options available to us—but our interest would be to move to the galactic east, correct?”
Heir to the Jedi
Worst of all for anyone attempting such a risky maneuver, the gravity-well projectors could be redirected to catch them:
“The destroyer captain believes we are the ones they are looking for. He wants the Interdictor to redirect its gravity projectors.”
That wouldn’t be good. They might be able to do it in time.
Heir to the Jedi
There are also some non-hyperspace factors to take into account.
- The further a ship is positioned from a planet, the smaller the angular area that the planet subtends, and the smaller the region of space where a ship trying to escape from the blockade would be safe from attack. Because a ship must win free of the planet’s gravity before jumping, a few ships at reasonable distance, spaced around the planet, could achieve a good deal of coverage. Don’t forget, it’s not just the ship that any potential enemy would have to worry about: it’s the ship’s weapons. Some of these could be pretty long range.
- There may be only a few capital ships blocking the planet, but they are supported by a veritable swarm of TIE fighters and other small, light, and fast vessels. Get spotted (whether by space, air, or ground forces) before you can plausibly escape, and these vessels can chase you down and shoot you dead.
- Many ships that might want to escape a blockade (trade vessels and so forth) may be neither as fast as those used by the protagonists, nor have as good hyperdrives, nor as hard to spot, etc. They have a worse chance of escaping the blockade.
- Let’s not forget the power of fear. There’s decent evidence in canon that blockades don’t have anything like 100% effectiveness in stopping ships from getting through. Some real-life blockades had similar problems. But if the blockade shoots down 5% of ships trying to get through it, that’s still more than enough to cut off trade. Sure, some people might escape, but regular trade will be very depressed. No one wants to take a 5% chance of being destroyed every time they make a supply run. Government through fear was a central tenet of Imperial philosophy (see: Tarkin Doctrine).
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