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ftl drive - How do Star Wars hyperdrives work?


I was wondering how Star Wars hyperdrives work. I'm mainly interested in how they use energy (i.e. electricity or any other types of power) to cause a ship to go faster than light's speed.


I'm aware that going faster than the speed of light is impossible according to real-world physics, but how does a hyperdrive in the Star Wars universe work?


Do hyperdrives generate wormholes? Do they simply make the ship accelerate faster than lightspeed? Do they create warp bubbles, or is there some other way they cause starships to go faster than light?


What are the generally accepted ideas and/or theories of how hyperdrives in the SW universe work? Is there a canon explanation?



Answer



The science behind Star Wars is only peripheral. So, those subjects are not very well defined and/or elaborated. After all, when peoples can move objects with the power of their mind, why bother about those scientific details?


Anyway, a Hyperdrive is just what allows travel faster than light through something called Hyperspace.


Excerpt from the Hyperspace starwars wikia article




Hyperspace was the alternate state of existence used by starships to achieve faster-than-light travel. It was a phenomenon not completely understood by scientists; it was alternately described as a parallel universe, an extra dimension of space, an alternate mode of physical existence, or simply the universe as viewed traveling faster than the speed of light.



As for how the Hyperdrive itself works, you could read the following, but since the Hyperspace itself is so poorly defined, it just looks like a random bunch of technical electronics and physics jargon. It looks like, at some point, they just gave up and said it works "somehow", as for the Force.


Excerpt from the Hyperdrive starwars wikia article



The process of a hyperspace jump began with the collection of gamma radiation by the field guide. A motivator would build up and modify the energy in a fusion generator through several kilometers of looped superconducting wire. To enter hyperspace, the hyperdrive's horizontal boosters would provide energy to the ionization chamber to begin ignition that would release the radiation, causing ripples in the time-space matrix and allowing the ship to propel off the ripples into hyperspace. Inertial dampers were used to protect the ship, crew, and cargo from being crushed by the tremendous acceleration of the jump. Once in hyperspace, a null quantum field generator helped stabilize the vessel and kept it from prematurely emerging from the alternate dimension. Shields also protected the ship from fatal collisions with interstellar gas and dark matter particles. To prevent the relativistic passing of time while in hyperspace, starships used stasis fields attuned to hyperdrive levels to keep organic onboard crews or cargoes "in time" with the standard galactic dimension.



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