Since the earliest days of the Old Republic, hyperspace
travel was used to reach distant worlds in a matter of
minutes rather than weeks, months or even years.
Faster-than-light travel was achieved by a hyperdrive
engine fitted into a starship. As one's mass increases
the faster you travel, it was thought impossible to reach
lightspeed. However, the hyperdrive was able to bypass
physical rules and enter hyperspace - which could be
most simply described as an alternate dimension
alongside 'realspace'. Such trips spanned years in
realspace, but were much, much shorter in a hyperspace
tunnel. However, even though they were alternate
dimensions, real and hyperspace were both coterminous: meaning that anything in hyperspace had a corresponding point in realspace. Thus, ships could not merely fly directly to a destination. Hyperspace routes needed to be calculated in order to make sure the route taken didn't bounce the ship too close to a supernova, or fly its occupants right through a star....something that would definately end their trip with a bang.
As well as having corresponding points in hyper and realspace, ships travelling at lightspeed also had a 'mass shadow' in realspace. This would prove fatal to any ship that got too near. Because of these dangers while in hyperspace, intricate routes delivering the safest journey were plotted into astrogation computers or droids. As objects in realspace were moving all the time, these routes had to be updated all the time. For a little extra security, some pilots flew through easily accessed hyperspace corridors - galactic routes that were largely free of obstructions, often used for interplanetary trade. Discovering new hyperspace corridors earned explorers a fortune, but the work was incredibly tedious, as they had to plot many 'micro-jumps' through uncharted territory. |
