Star Wars: Why Some Ships Need Hyperspace Rings to Go to Lightspeed

Reaching lightspeed is essential to traversing the Star Wars universe, but even by the time of the Clone Wars, some ships could only do so using a hyperspace ring. The galaxy in which the Star Wars series takes place was, by the estimate of some canon sources, more than 100,000 lightyears across, and contained billions of star systems. The events contained within the approximate bounds of the Skywalker saga, from the Clone Wars to the Galactic Civil War, all spanned the length of this galaxy. Even when divided into regions, ranging from the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim Territories to Wild Space, the size of each section of the galaxy was such that to experience even a fraction of its diversity, one would need a starship capable of reaching speeds beyond what would traditionally be allowed by physics.

Faster-than-light travel has been a puzzle for many works of science fiction. In the Star Wars universe, this is explained in some detail (outside of the movies, naturally) through the concept of hyperspace. By observing the natural abilities of spacefaring whale-like creatures known as purrgil, ancient engineers discovered that, by exceeding the speed of light, a body could be pushed into hyperspace – an alternate dimension separate from “realspace” – in which great distances could be covered in a comparatively small amount of time. Inevitably somewhat dangerous, especially if attempted outside of a designated hyperspace route, because “mass shadows” of large objects in realspace could influence the layout of hyperspace, this process was nonetheless essential to any substantial travel, and dangerous maneuvers involving close proximity to a strong source of gravity were nonetheless achieved by some of the most skilled pilots, including Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Han Solo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Lightspeed travel was generally accomplished by way of a hyperdrive, but this crucial piece of technology proved to be overly restrictive in certain cases.

While most larger ships could access hyperspace independently via their hyperdrives, some smaller vessels, including the personal starfighters often used by Jedi Knights, required a dedicated hyperspace ring. The device, which first appeared in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, could attach to a ship that lacked a hyperdrive and provide the necessary power to enter hyperspace. Although leaving a vulnerable hyperspace ring anchored in orbit around a planet posed a potential risk of being stranded, leading up to and during the time of the Clone Wars, equipping a small ship with its own hyperdrive was not feasible without significant sacrifices to performance.

By the time of the Galactic Empire, the technology had advanced sufficiently to allow for unassisted hyperspace travel by smaller ships, such as the Rebels’ X-wings, although some, like the Empire’s TIE Fighters, still lacked this capability and needed to be transported over long distances by larger ships. In this way, the simple addition of an aesthetically interesting sci-fi idea to the prequels also served as a way of showing the progression of the universe’s technology over time.

The science of hyperspace is one of Star Wars‘ more esoteric details, often being used to facilitate after-the-fact explanations of scientifically questionable phenomena even beyond faster-than-light travel, such as the simultaneous viewing of Starkiller Base’s attacks. More practically, however, ships’ interaction with hyperspace offers a unique facet of the universe through which the films’ particular style and flavor can be expressed. In much the same spirit that informed the grungier, worn-in aesthetic of George Lucas’s original Star Wars, the introduction of hyperspace rings deepens the science fiction worldbuilding of the series by imposing limitations, an approach that is especially impactful when applied to topics as entrenched in the genre as spaceships and lightspeed.