Standard HyperSpace distance unit

A standard HyperSpace distance unit (or SDU) is the unit of distance in HyperSpace.

The only canonical reference to this unit of measurement comes from the Syreen Starbase Commander Talana when describing the fate of the Space Patrol Penetrator fleet. She tells The Captain that, based on trip-time calculations, the location where the Kzer-Za led and cached the fleet is within 200 standard HyperSpace distance units of Betelgeuse. Epsilon Camelopardalis, the star system where the Syreen Ship Vault is located, is about 182 HyperSpace distance units from Betelgeuse. In terms of HyperSpace travel, The Flagship consumes 0.1 units of fuel per HyperSpace distance unit. The starmap, which represents the extent of in-game explorable HyperSpace, is a square with a side length of 1000 distance units.

The abbreviation SDU (Standard Distance Unit) is non-canonical but useful.

The correspondence between HyperSpace distance units and light-years, meters or any other common unit of measurement is unknown, though some sources hint that a HyperSpace distance unit is at least 0.61 light-years. Fwiffo gives the distance between Sol and Spathiwa as 143 light-years. In HyperSpace, the two stars are 233 SDU apart. Assuming that the two distances are equivalent and that the distance given by Fwiffo is accurate (which may be problematic, due to Fwiffo's panicked state at the moment), the length of a HyperSpace distance unit is 0.61 light-years. By comparison, the Melnorme state that the Sentient Milieu spanned 500 light-years, which would equate to 814 HyperSpace distance units with this conversion factor.

See Also: Starmap