In the beginning of The Rise of Skywalker we can see the Millennium Falcon do something that they call lightspeed skipping.
How does that work and what makes it different from regular lightspeed travel?
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12"what makes it different from regular lightspeed travel?" Poor writing, and ignoring the existing and Disney approved/confirmed/reinforced canon that Hyperspace travel is disrupted by gravity wells (so you can't jump after until you leave orbit of a planet - which is also the reason that the [spoiler] ships can't leave Exogal without taking off first...)– ChronocidalJan 8, 2020 at 13:25
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@Chronocidal FWIW established canon is that it is possible to hyperspace jump in a gravitational well, it's just that it is strongly advised against.– TheLethalCarrot ♦Jan 8, 2020 at 14:55
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3@TheLethalCarrot Interdictor-class Star Destroyers used gravity wells to not only stop ships jumping to hyperspace, but also to pull ships in hyperspace out into normal space (Rebels S2E09 "Shadow Strike" and S3E21-22 "Zero Hour") - the closest previous examples are from low-orbit (which is indeed described as being extremely hazardous and uncontrollable). Poe, on the other hand, combines this with the "crazy" move of dropping out of hyperspace under the same circumstances (first done by Han in TFA after exposition of how dangerous and almost impossible that is) and the TIE fighters follow– ChronocidalJan 8, 2020 at 15:52
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3Traveling through hyperspace is like dusting crops after all.– EssenJan 8, 2020 at 20:09
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Usually lightspeed skipping means regularly spending time in a ship travelling near lightspeed in normalspace in order to take advantage of relativistic effects to "skip" through normal time.– SaintWackoJan 8, 2020 at 21:29
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2 Answers
We have very little information on lightspeed skipping or hyperspace-skipping. It appears to have been invented for The Rise of Skywalker. Obviously in the film we only get to know that it's possible but dangerous and see it happen. The Visual Dictionary goes into a little bit more detail spread over several sections though:
A daring run of "hyperspace skipping" - a new variant of old smuggle tactics designed to evade Imperial pursuit - has exhausted its compressor systems and both sub-alternators.
Poe beats a hasty retreat from Sinta Glacier by hyperspace-skipping the Falcon through a quick succession of deep space obstacles, including the Megafauna Chasm of the Typhonic Nebula, the Mirror-Spires of Ivexia, and the Crystal Chaos of Cardovyte.
Poe has perfected hyperspace-skipping, a dangerous series of precalculated lightspeed hops meant to throw off First Order attempts at tracking.
From the above we can see that it is essentially a series of short, normal lightspeed jumps combined together down a precalculated route.
answered Jan 8, 2020 at 13:27
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I don't think it was called this in the film, but was this in any way related to the trick in the climactic scene in Solo? You know, the "Kessler Run in 12 parsecs" retcon? Jan 9, 2020 at 14:27
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1@DarrelHoffman Then I guess in Solo it was just a dangerous normal jump.– TheLethalCarrot ♦Jan 10, 2020 at 14:16
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1To me it seemed more like they were pretty much just random jumps. Which in itself should be fine if lightspeed worked by a warp portal, space is mostly empty after all. But if that's how lightspeed now suddenly works, then how does the Holdo move from the former movie work? Shouldn't she have teleported through the enemy ships as well? Man, proper writing is tough.– TheikJan 14, 2020 at 7:24
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1@TheLethalCarrot True, but that was more of a fanservice nod to people who say the move shouldn't work. But in the same way, there is no way a jump through an object should be able to work.– TheikJan 14, 2020 at 8:15
It is employing light speed without a hyperspace lane. In Star Wars, there are hyperspace lanes that ships can jump into and ride to a destination.
In Star Trek, there are no "hyperspace" lanes but warping in a straight line with minimum probability to run smack into a planet or star. Thanks to the writing.
The Rise of Skywalker showed us light speed really works, without a space highway (hyperspace lane). Han Solo kind of alluded to this in the first trilogy where he had to plot coordinates, because he could not just "jump" in to lightspeed.
In the The Rise of Skywalker, it was finally written as to how dangerous this would be, in "real life", if we did it like Star Trek.