"You've never heard of the Millenium Falcon? It?s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs."
This line has made so many astronomy and science enthusiasts irrationally angry for one fairly simple reason. Parsecs is not a unit of time. It is a unit of distance. This is entirely true and from a surface level I think everyone agrees that distance is not subjective based on how fast Solo's space-junker is flying.
However, it is my opinion that the statement itself is in fact a genuine boast of real fame and glory. It is neither erroneous, nor improperly used. Now I would like to preface my explanation for that by stating that in no way do I think that George Lucas is incapable of confusing parsecs for a unit of time. That's totally possible. However, that being said, I can actually put forth a solid argument for why stating that a space smuggling run was made in less than 12 parsecs is actually a scientifically feasible boast.
To start with I will ask you to imagine how fundamentally different it would be to smuggle goods through space, rather than on a planet most large-scale smuggling operations are over land or sea. A smuggler would have to ensure that he does not cross sovereign space where he could potentially be detected by system security. On a planet that security might be prohibitive to the point that the route is impossible, but in space you can always move in almost any direction far enough that you could avoid any obstacle. Of course, that would require covering a vast distance. See where I'm going? On a planet, one needs to consider terrain, while space is about 99% just that: Space. So a smuggler who plays it safe would take long routes to avoid system patrols, intersystem armed forces, and the like who might take umbrage with their liberal interpretation of trade.
But a savvy smuggler? One who is not only a wild card but skilled enough to back up their devil-may-care attitude towards law enforcement? A smuggler like Solo? He would flout the law for the sake of flouting it and if he makes a profit along the way so much the better. The Kessel Run refers to smuggling spice between Kessel and the Si'Kaata cluster, which is normally an 18 parsec route. Solo, however, could easily decide to screw convention and take shortcuts, cutting through protected space and patrolled system routes regardless of the danger because he is confident that he can escape any attempt to pin him down. In other words, he could reduce the distance of the Kessel Run from 18 parsecs to less than 12 parsecs. That would be a considerable distance reduction, and the ability to make such a dangerous run would mean he could make a sizable profit by cutting ahead of the competing smugglers to sell his cargo at a premium while his competition is still making up the other 6 parsecs.
That's my explanation anyway. To be entirely honest, I don't even like Solo as a character that much, but that throw-away line in the movie made such a stink in the nerd community that it rankled with me. I always wondered why people could not grasp the concept of shortcuts cutting down a smuggling route's distance.
So there you have it. It is entirely possible to make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs!
This line has made so many astronomy and science enthusiasts irrationally angry for one fairly simple reason. Parsecs is not a unit of time. It is a unit of distance. This is entirely true and from a surface level I think everyone agrees that distance is not subjective based on how fast Solo's space-junker is flying.
However, it is my opinion that the statement itself is in fact a genuine boast of real fame and glory. It is neither erroneous, nor improperly used. Now I would like to preface my explanation for that by stating that in no way do I think that George Lucas is incapable of confusing parsecs for a unit of time. That's totally possible. However, that being said, I can actually put forth a solid argument for why stating that a space smuggling run was made in less than 12 parsecs is actually a scientifically feasible boast.
To start with I will ask you to imagine how fundamentally different it would be to smuggle goods through space, rather than on a planet most large-scale smuggling operations are over land or sea. A smuggler would have to ensure that he does not cross sovereign space where he could potentially be detected by system security. On a planet that security might be prohibitive to the point that the route is impossible, but in space you can always move in almost any direction far enough that you could avoid any obstacle. Of course, that would require covering a vast distance. See where I'm going? On a planet, one needs to consider terrain, while space is about 99% just that: Space. So a smuggler who plays it safe would take long routes to avoid system patrols, intersystem armed forces, and the like who might take umbrage with their liberal interpretation of trade.
But a savvy smuggler? One who is not only a wild card but skilled enough to back up their devil-may-care attitude towards law enforcement? A smuggler like Solo? He would flout the law for the sake of flouting it and if he makes a profit along the way so much the better. The Kessel Run refers to smuggling spice between Kessel and the Si'Kaata cluster, which is normally an 18 parsec route. Solo, however, could easily decide to screw convention and take shortcuts, cutting through protected space and patrolled system routes regardless of the danger because he is confident that he can escape any attempt to pin him down. In other words, he could reduce the distance of the Kessel Run from 18 parsecs to less than 12 parsecs. That would be a considerable distance reduction, and the ability to make such a dangerous run would mean he could make a sizable profit by cutting ahead of the competing smugglers to sell his cargo at a premium while his competition is still making up the other 6 parsecs.
That's my explanation anyway. To be entirely honest, I don't even like Solo as a character that much, but that throw-away line in the movie made such a stink in the nerd community that it rankled with me. I always wondered why people could not grasp the concept of shortcuts cutting down a smuggling route's distance.
So there you have it. It is entirely possible to make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs!
