My Frozen Blog

putting off going to bed at night because you don’t want to wake up and do the same shit all over again the next day

waking up in the morning but putting off getting out of bed because you don’t want to face the day

I’ve heard the discussion about Han Solo’s famous “Kessel Run” time and time again - both inside the Star Wars community and outside it. Common consensus seems to be that Han Solo’s boast that the Falcon could do the run in 12 parsecs indicates that Solo has no idea what a parsec is, or else relies on the fact that his audience doesn’t know.

This discussion relies on two main facts:

A parsec is a unit of measurement equivalent to roughly 3.26 light-years. This means that a parsec is a unit of distance, not a unit of time.

The Kessel Run is a smuggling route in the Star Wars universe, running illicit spice from the spice mines of Kessel to its destination worlds. It is not a commonly-used trade route, partially because the route is fraught with danger - especially “The Maw” cluster of black holes.

The main mistake people seem to make when discussing this issue is believing that Han is boasting about the Falcon’s speed. This is understandable, because Han often boasts about the Falcon’s speed in other situations, and it is natural to assume that a vehicle owner boasts about the speed of their vehicle because that is what we Earthlings are used to when discussing cars and other machines. As such, they think that Han is purporting that “12 Parsecs” is a quantification of the Falcon’s immense velocity.

This is an incorrect assumption, however. What Han is actually boasting about is the Falcon’s ability to safely navigate the dangerous Kessel Run by the shortest possible route. Travelling at hyperspace is not a simple matter of moving the ship directly from A to B, since there are doubtless hundreds or thousands of intervening planets, stars, asteroids, and other dangers. A ship’s computer must be programmed with a route which avoids such obstacles - usually giving them a wide berth, just to be on the safe side. The computer can also adjust itself en route if an unforeseen hazard presents itself.

Han Solo programs the Falcon’s computer system to fly as close to these hazards - especially the forbidding Maw Cluster - as is possible without being destroyed. Most other pilots would see this behaviour as foolhardy, but Han apparently doesn’t care. Because the Falcon is programmed to fly closer to these obstacles than most other pilots would dare consider, it needs to “steer” far less, and so can traverse the route in a straighter line than any other starship. This means that the Falcon completes the Kessel Run in a shorter distance than other ships - a mere 12 parsecs.

This is backed up in The Force Awakens when Rey, impressed that the ‘hunk of junk’ she’s aboard is the Millennium Falcon, marvels that “This is the ship which ran the Kessel Run in 14 parsecs”. Han corrects her by saying “12″. This therefore implies that 12 parsecs is more impressive than 14 - something which is totally in keeping with the above.

“He’s going to wake up, you know.”

Rey starts and looks up, tightening her hold on Finn’s hand. There he is again: Poe Dameron, the pilot, or maybe–the pilot.

There are a lot of pilots. Rey runs into them everywhere–checking diagnostics, grabbing caf, drinking over sabacc games–but so far only one of them has bothered to say anything to her beyond a simple hello.

“He’s going to,” Poe says again, sitting down on Finn’s other side and taking Finn’s other hand, “Med-droid said there’s no reason for him to not, after that dip in the bacta tank, so he’s probably just…you know, it’s been a long couple of days.”

He smiles at Rey–he smiles a lot–and Rey can’t help but smile back. It’s not as if he’s wrong. “I know. I just wish…”

“You’re leaving today?”

She nods. “In just a few hours. General Organa, she asked–” She clamps her mouth shut, because one of the things General Organa had asked was this mission be kept a secret, and Rey’s not sure if Poe is on the list of need-to-know.

Rey’s not sure of a lot of things, in this ever-increasing group of pilots and people and secrets; it had been simpler on the Millennium Falcon with just Finn and Han Solo and Chewbacca and BB-8, only now it–

Her breath hitches. Only now it hurt, to think of the Falcon at all. It hurt to think of Finn, and Han, Finn and Han and the shadow of Kylo Ren below them and Han falling and thinking absurdly in that moment but I was going to be his co-pilot and later the biting cold and the fear, blood rushing to her head and the pull of the Force and not Finn, not Finn

“Hey, hey,” she hears, and there are Poe’s eyes peering at her in concern, and there’s Poe’s hand, suddenly in hers. “Don’t punk out on me.”

He smiles at her–he smiles a lot–and suddenly Rey feels self-conscious, almost like an intruder. She didn’t give Finn his name. She’s not BB-8′s master. There’s no word for who she is, except maybe accident, because that was how they found her at all.

“In just a few hours,” she repeats lamely, staring at their still joined hands instead of meeting his eyes. They look rough–they feel rough, callused and dry from the ravages of X-Wing maintenance, but the tendons underneath are firm, and when he squeezes her fingers slightly she can sense his strength.

There’s a damp spot on his sleeve; stray drop of caf, maybe? They seem pretty typical, with Poe–damp spots. Spilled caf, absent-mindedness, easy gestures, shouts of laughter in the halls. He squeezes her hand again. “You’ll be back in no time, and he’ll be up. You’ll see.”

Rey bites her lip. It’s something she’s never done before–on Jakku, there hadn’t been the luxury of excess gestures, of damp, but maybe she could learn. “I don’t…punk,” she finally replies.

His smile widens. “No?”

She ducks her head a little and wonders what he senses under her own calluses. “No.”

“Nah,” he agrees after a moment. “You don’t seem like the type.”

They sit in silence after that, both looking over at Finn until an intercom buzzes overhead, requesting all X-Wing pilots to the hangar.

Poe blows out a slow breath before letting go of Rey’s hand, and then Finn’s hand. “You’ll be back,” he says. It sounds less like a reassurance this time, and more like a request.

Rey nods, suddenly remembering the battle that had raged overhead while she and Finn had been running around Starkiller Base. How many friends had Poe lost that day? How many more would they both lose? “Yes,” she says, “And he’ll wake.”